


Crossfire

by Abraxas



Category: Justified
Genre: Drama, F/M, Original Character(s), Road Trips, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:43:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abraxas/pseuds/Abraxas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of 'Bloody Harlan', Ava finds herself alone - but she isn't about to let Boyd go that easily. And trouble is the one thing they're both running to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own _Justified_ nor its characters, I derive no profit but pleasure.
> 
> A 'soundtrack' for this story, featuring lots of excellent tunes, is available for download [HERE](http://www.4shared.com/zip/0esKL_nQ/Crossfire.html)

 

The day after the fire, Arlene Lefferts stood on the porch of her house and surveyed the damage. The barn had been almost razed to the ground, a few blackened beams still standing but it was mainly a pile of ash and burnt wood.

Her mouth was held tight, teeth clamped hard together.

She didn't turn when the screen-door creaked but she heard Ronnie's heavy tread and then a long soft sigh.

'Well, they made a good job of it.' She glanced at him then and he scratched his head with his forefinger. A big man with patient eyes but there was a tiredness in them now that ran deeper than she had ever seen.

'Didn't know those Jenkins boys had it in them.'

'We don't know it was them,' Ronnie said gently.

'Of course it was!' She swallowed the anger, the strain showing in her face; when she spoke again her voice was hard and flat. 'Everybody knows it was them and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it.' A breath caught, held deep before she blew it back out again, eyes back on the blackened mess. 'I don't know what we're going to do, Ronnie.'

The porch floorboards squeaked under his work-boots and a hand landed on her shoulder; he squeezed it, fingers curling clumsily, and the corners of her mouth twitched in response. After Ronnie went back inside, Arlene stayed on the porch, leaned against the railings. It was a hot day, the air dry and unforgiving. Her hair clung to her neck in damp tendrils, the thin cotton dress feeling heavy and uncomfortable. Everything was uncomfortable, even her own skin. It felt worn-down. Stretched. And the air still tasted of smoke. She closed her eyes against the sight of the scarred earth and the blistered stumps of wood, opened them again when she heard a car pull up.

Arlene started moving before she had quite registered the markings on the side of the vehicle. She knew who it would be and she didn't want that man any further on her property than she could help. He stopped by the old trough that she had punched holes in and turned into a planter. The trailing flowers and leaves had gone un-watered that day and they were already limp, their colours faded. He put one foot up on the edge, rested his elbows on his bended knee and waited for her.

Anyone would think he owned the damn place and she thought that if she'd had a gun in her hands she might just well have used it on him. She walked fast, her body prickling with sweat and anger; the burn of the sun caught the back of her neck.

'Arlene.' He nodded to her as she approached and took off his sunglasses; they dangled carelessly between his fingers. His other hand rested on the gun at his hip.

'Lowell.' He wasn't a big man, not particularly tall and his frame was compact, wiry. A lined face and dark hair that always looked curiously lifeless. 'What are you here for?'

'Well now, seeing as how your barn got all burned up last night I got to take a statement. But that'll keep. Right now I'm just here to say I'm mighty sorry for your trouble; seems to me like it's about the last thing you were needing, coming on top of everything else.'

Her nails bit into the palms of her hands. 'Pity no-one was as fast getting over here before my place got burned up.'

He leant forward slightly. 'Now, Arlene, the truck was already out, them boys was up over Amos' old place. Weather being so dry and all everyplace is going up like tinder.'

She laughed, a sharp bark. 'A wildfire and it only hits my barn?'

He shrugged and pulled his lips back. Something had gone wrong on the assembly line, she thought, someone had put the teeth and the mind of a shark into a man's head. 'These things happen.'

'And you should know.'

The shark's smile hadn't reached his eyes: they were black and cold and hard. 'You're upset and I'm going to bear that in mind and pretend that you didn't just go making accusations about a police official.' His foot slipped off the rim of the trough and he was standing a little too close to her. She could smell the cheap aftershave and her stomach roiled. 'Even with all your trouble you still look mighty good today, Arlene.'

She could feel the twitch in her face, disgust twisting at her mouth.

'You might want to think about packing up - ain't no life out here for a woman on her own.'

'I ain't on my own,' she said, tight.

Another smile and he turned away, called over his shoulder: 'I'll be back. '

He walked back towards the car, a slow rolling gait and Arlene kept her eyes on the vehicle until it had threaded through the holler in a haze of dust. The sound of the engine died away and the silence around her strengthened again. And she released a shaking breath though her teeth.

It wasn't just her skin that was worn thin, it was all the threads of her life. She raked her hands through her hair, fingers twisting into the roots and she stayed like that for a while, her eyes shut tight against the pressure behind them. Then she took another breath and let it go and smoothed down her hair and went back into the house.


	2. Crazy Love

 

 

Ava put the jeep into park and sat for a time, hands tight on the wheel, staring through the dusty windshield at the house. Some of the windows were still boarded up, the wood clean against the peeling paint and ingrained dirt on the surrounds and the walls. Johnny had refused to move, saying that it wouldn't take much to fix the place up again. Ava didn't think that it being half-blown up had done it much harm anyhow but she had kept that to herself.

She peeled her fingers off the steering-wheel, dipped into her purse, pulled out her phone and tried the number one more time. It went straight to voicemail and she swore under her breath. She had not demanded many promises from him and those he had made he had kept. Not for the first time she wished that he hadn't. Ava eased herself out of the truck, slowly crossed the patch of bare earth that led to the porch and stopped again before she reached it. She stared out at the field, although it was generous calling it that. A stretch of patchy grass and dried-out soil that had been the sight of family gatherings - barbecues, impromptu football games where Bowman would leave everyone plastered to the ground.

She shut her mind against him and his invasion into this, mounted the two steps and rapped her knuckles sharply against the closed screen door.

'Johnny, it's Ava.'

She heard her own voice echo through the hall and then saw the figure slowly pushing its way towards her. She pulled open the door and waited on the threshold until he reached her. He couldn't quite hide his surprise and his eyes darted, suspicious, past her, then came back and he frowned slightly.

'Hey, Ava.'

'Hi.' He looked up at her and she held onto the strap of the purse hanging from her shoulder. 'You going to ask me in or you want to talk out here on the porch?'

His mouth opened, closed again, tongue darted out to moisten his lips and he said, 'Sure.' He rolled himself back, making space for her, and she took a breath going into that gloomy interior. Johnny closed the screen door and then the front door itself and the walls of the hallway closed in on her like a tomb. She had always hated this house. She had sworn after the last time that she would never go back there. Boyd had nodded, grave, holding her hands between his and promised that she would never have to.

He hadn't broken that promise, strictly speaking, but she was there because of him and she did blame him for that.

She turned off into the kitchen, the squeak of Johnny's wheels following her.

'Can I get you something?'

'I'm good, thanks.' She sat on a chair that wobbled under her, flicked the hair away from her shoulder and kept her purse on her knees, her hands gripping it tightly.

'You won't mind if I do.' He twisted himself up out of the chair, grunting with the effort. A lurching shuffle across the kitchen to the fridge and he retrieved a beer, made his way back to the chair on legs that just about co-operated. His face was waxen and clammy by the time he was done and he looked horribly thin.

'You sure?' he asked, holding up the bottle that was already sweating in the heat.

Ava shook her head. 'I'm sure.' Had she been desperate she still would have refused rather than see that again. She eased her grip on her purse, placed it lightly on the table and sat, her fingers curled around the edges of her chair.

'How you been doing?' Johnny asked and the question threw her. It sounded like he wanted to know.

'I'm fine,' she told him. His eyes wandered over and he nodded, took a pull on the beer with evident enjoyment.

'Hurts like the devil, don't it?'

She pressed her lips together. 'Yes. But I'm okay. It wasn't that bad.' He was still for a moment, watching her, then took more of the beer. 'Have you heard from Boyd?'

'No.'

Her head tilted and she sat back; her arms folded across her stomach. Johnny always had been a God-awful liar. 'You want to try that one again?'

'Ava-'

'I know he came here before he left so don't bother lying about it.'

'I wasn't going to,' he muttered, defensive. His eyes darted to her and away; he pushed the dirty baseball cap further back on his head. 'I ain't heard from him.'

'In how long?'

He shrugged, awkward, glared sullenly at the bottle in his hands. Ava sighed.

'Mind if I get some water?'

Another rise of thin shoulders before they lowered again. 'Help yourself.'

He stayed where he was and she manoeuvred herself around him, squeezing between his chair and the table. She pulled down one of the few clean glasses but still rinsed it out before filling it. The sink was full of dirty crockery and an inch of greasy water.

'You should get someone to come up here and help out.'

'You volunteering?'

Ava let out a long breath down her nose, drank her water. She refilled the glass, eased past him again and sat down. 'This place is a mess.'

'Well, I don't do much in the way of entertaining these days, Ava, so I don't think anyone minds all that much and I know I don't. But if you want to clean those dishes, you go right ahead.'

Johnny had never been an easy person, even before. There was a bitterness that ran deep, something Ava could never quite understand and didn't particularly want to. It was worse now, naturally, and maybe with good reason but she found it hard to muster much sympathy. Ava watched him calmly. He was ambitious but a little too lazy to ever really make it work for him; not stupid but not quite smart enough to recognise his own limitations. It made him predictable in his reactions, and trustworthy - up to a point.

Ava took another sip of the water, wincing against its metallic bitterness; she put the glass back on the table, condensation running in rivulets down the sides and pooling at the base and she waited. Johnny started to fidget.

'I can't tell you where Boyd's at.'

'Y'know' -she crossed one leg over the other and sat forward slightly- 'it's real obvious when you're lying so you might as well just tell me what it is you think that you're hiding so good.'

He looked up at her then; there was silence for a while and when he spoke again his voice was reasonable and almost gentle. 'Why don't you just let this go? Boyd'll come back when he's good and ready.'

'He's not planning on coming back, we both know that.' Something ran through him and he went back to picking at the label on his beer-bottle, one dirty fingernail scratching at the edges. 'You must be able to get hold of him, he didn't go about setting up this business just to walk away from it all.'

Johnny's head came up again and his mouth twisted. 'Maybe he trusted me enough to leave it all in my more than capable hands.'

She smiled, tight and humourless. 'No offence, Johnny, but Boyd don't trust anybody enough for that. Where is he?'

He was still fidgeting, his upper body restless while his legs stayed still, all but useless. 'Look, he calls me sometimes, okay? I don't call him. Ain't no point anyhow, he's got his damned phone switched off.' He stopped, continued with something more placating in his tone: 'Next time he calls I'll tell him you came by, want him home, how's that?'

'I think I'll be a bit more persuasive than you, somehow.' Johnny smiled slightly at that and so did she and then her voice hardened again. 'Where is he?'

He hunkered down in his chair, defeated. 'I don't know, exactly.'

She pounced on the word. 'Exactly? But more or less.'

'Damn it, woman!' He glared at her, eyes flaring then dying down again. 'You spent too much time with him, you know that? Starting to sound just like him.'

'I'm starting to lose my patience here and I really would prefer it if you didn't make me ask you again.' Chin held high she stared him down.

Johnny held up his hands, fingerless gloves that were threadbare across the palms. 'He didn't tell me all the details, he didn't want me or anybody else knowing.' He looked at her accusingly. 'All I know is he was headed East.'

'East is a mighty big place,' she said and could feel her patience thinning, a thread stretched to breaking point and about to snap.

'West Virginia.'

She blinked, frowned. 'West Vir-'

His hands spread wide then dropped; they hung beside the wheels of his chair. 'I don't know no more than that, Ava, as God is my witness.'

Ava was still frowning but the words that were coming stopped suddenly and her face cleared. Johnny watched her, uncertain, and he was one who frowned when he saw the burn behind her eyes and the tightening at the corners of her mouth.

'Ava-'

'Thanks, Johnny, you've been a real big help.' She pushed herself away from the table, took up her bag and crossed to the door, paused. 'I'll put a sign up down at the store, see if someone will come up and do something with this place. Only you better pay 'em if they do.'

He grunted. 'Well, I ain't paying 'em much.'

Ava drove back down to the holler, relishing the familiar sights and the sunshine dancing warm through the windshield. The house still felt empty, gutted, but she could deal with that and it wouldn't be for long. There was little evidence of what had happened: window panes had been replaced almost immediately, plaster repaired and repainted. Only a few deep scratches in the hardwood floor spoke of the small war that had erupted there. She scratched her shoulder absentmindedly, the itch deep under the skin.

Boyd wasn't big on keepsakes - or much of anything else, going by the meagre possessions he had moved in with him. Anything that meant something to him he would have taken on his new odyssey but she knew where to find what she needed. There were boxes up in the attic that she had never got around to sorting out after Bowman died but she wouldn't need to go that far, although she would if it came to that.

Ava made a pot of coffee, poured herself a mug, strong and sweet, and after a few moments' deliberation added a shot of bourbon, just to help against the inevitable memories that would come. She carried it through to the parlour, pushed one of the big armchairs out of the way, knelt beside the sideboard, pulled open one of the doors and started pulling out albums and battered old shoe-boxes stuffed with photographs. Some of them had been there so long they were stuck together, the colours faded and faces that had once been so clear now smudged and indistinct. Ava sorted through them, setting aside bundles she knew would be of no help but still got caught now and then by an unexpected image, stared at the delicate remembrances held between her fingers before putting them away.

If someone had told her a year ago that Boyd would attempt to remove himself from her life completely, she would have said that was a good thing. If they'd told her she'd go chasing after him, she'd have laughed.

Or maybe it wouldn't have been quite so good and maybe she wouldn't have laughed all that hard. She remembered the way his eyes and his words used to crawl over her skin and that tiny answering flicker that was down so deep it was easy to pretend that it wasn't there.

Sometimes she wondered how it would have all turned out if things had been different back in the day. She remembered when her grandmother had got sick - a vivacious woman, ferocious in her love, suddenly gaunt and quiet; her mama had worked two jobs trying to keep them all going and Ava had decided to make Raylan Givens the centre of her world. He had liked her well enough but he had never really cared - and that had still been true all those years later. He had wanted her, of course, all the boys had. Boyd had wanted her, too, but not in quite the same way. He had wanted her body but he had also wanted her mind and heart and soul and when he had, finally, got them he decided to leave her.

Stupid man, she thought, bracing herself against the rising anger, stupid, stubborn, impossible man. Argument was too violent a word for what had passed between them; although, she had tried to goad him, tried anything to poke through that wall of calm, bland reasonableness. He had listened to her, patient, and then had still told her he was going and she had wanted to tear his eyes out.

Ava drank down some of her coffee, its dense smoky sweetness searing her throat and she coughed slightly, blinked, focused again on the photographs. Evening had come down while she had been sitting there, swaddling the room and the house and everything beyond it in a murky shadow, thickening cloud threatening rain after the heat of the day. Ava got up from the floor, staggered slightly as the feeling came back into the leg that had gone asleep while she'd been sitting on it. She went back into the kitchen, scrubbed at her eyes, poured more coffee - without a kicker this time - went back to the parlour. The lamps, when they were switched on, seemed unnaturally bright after the gloom and she blinked against the glare. She picked up a pile of photographs, took them to the couch and started going through them. They were the most faded of all, some of them reduced to shades of lilac and a sickly green, the corners creased. Most of these were people she had never known but she felt the prickle of recognition for the objects themselves, a sense of triumph as she closed in.

It was complete darkness when she got to them and Ava was struck again by how much Boyd took after his mother: the same long, clean limbs; the piercing eyes with their frightening intelligence; the strong, sensitive curve of the mouth. Her beauty had been arresting. Ava studied the young face, flipped the photograph and read the inscription on the back. _Mallory, WV. 1967._

She sighed, let her head fall back against the cushions and closed her eyes.

For the next two days Ava pulled out more photographs, found old papers, spent hours perched in front of the computer silently cursing the slowness of the internet connection. She made a trip to the store just to get paper for the printer.

Late afternoon on the second day she heard the crunch of tyres on the dirt road outside and everything inside her squeezed, hard, taking her breath and she all but ran to the door, smoothing down her hair. She stopped just before she pushed open the screen and disappointment coated her mouth, bitter. A town car, its glossy paint dusty from the long drive down from Lexington. Ava stepped out onto the porch, the screen swinging shut behind her and waited until Raylan reached the porch steps.

'Ain't it good manners to ask if you can come barging into someone's property?' Ava asked when his foot rested on the bottom step. Raylan took off his hat, held it close to his chest and his other hand away from his body.

'May I come up?'

She shrugged. 'Suit yourself, but you might as well seeing as how you're already here.' Ava didn't move away from the door, didn't invite him in, made him stay out there on the porch. She didn't want him to see the photographs that were spilled across the table and the floor; she didn't want him to see the papers and the books and the maps but more than anything she didn't want him to see the absence in the house. The great aching wound in the middle of everything.

Ava kept her hands on her hips, her head high and she stared at Raylan with more defiance than she actually felt. He could probably see right through her, she thought, he was trained for that after all, and he had always been a watcher more than anything, someone standing on the outside.

But then again, maybe he'd always been too interested in Boyd and his doings to really see her anyway. And that was also still true: his eyes kept wandering from her face to the dark interior, as though he could conjure up the person he thought was in there.

'I came to see Boyd; I need to talk to him.'

Ava folded her arms. 'You see his truck out front?'

There was a glimmer, almost humorous, across his face. 'I'm still not familiar with it.'

She put her eyebrows up. 'Well, you know my jeep, don't you? And apart from that and your car, you see anything else parked here?'

Raylan's head tilted, his eyes screwing up and there was that quirk around his mouth. 'So, Boyd ain't here?'

'Boyd ain't here.'

His lips pressed together, gaze going back to the stretch of hallway beyond the screen door, then back to her face. 'I still need to talk to him.'

'I'll let him know.'

Raylan hovered by the railings, the brim of his hat passing through his hands. Ava sat down on the long wicker seat, tucked one foot up under herself, propped her cheek against her hand. There was more silver in his hair, his lean cheeks thinner, lined. Without thinking she scratched at the healed wound in her shoulder.

'Have you been doing okay?' he asked softly.

Ava put her hand down. 'I'm fine.' It was concern in his face and she smiled slightly at him. 'Really, I'm okay. How about you?'

'Oh... It would have killed another man.'

For a moment they smiled at each other.

'How's Winona?'

A pause. 'She's... She's good. Why?'

Ava rolled her eyes. 'Oh, for God's sake, Raylan. It's- Call it politeness. I'm happy for you, I hope it works out for you. For both of you.'

He nodded, his eyes dropping to the floor and his fingers tightened on the hat. Ava shifted position, ran her hand through her hair.

'It could be a real long wait, if that's what you've got in mind,' she told him.

His eyes studied her face, a long stare that ended with a frown building across his forehead. She met the gaze. Raylan replaced his hat.

'When Boyd gets back-'

'I'll tell him you were asking for him.'

Another pause. 'Yes.'

She stayed on the porch until the tail-lights had disappeared.

A few days later Raylan went back to Ava's. The house seemed shut down even before he got out of the car. He mounted the porch steps slowly, one hand moving to the gun, feeling the familiar contours of the butt with his fingers. The screen door was latched, the windows shuttered. It seemed stripped somehow and then he noticed that Ava's abundant pot-plants had been moved. They were all lined neatly under the shade of a tree, waiting for the rain that would keep them watered in the absence of someone to tend them. He performed a slow circuit of the house, looked in the back windows that gave onto the kitchen; it was all very neat and clear and silent.

At the same time that Raylan was at her house, Ava was on the I-64 crossing the state line into West Virginia.


	3. Mark of Cain

 

Boyd had left Cabell County behind three days before, turning off the interstate and heading south; he'd threaded down though Lincoln, following quiet roads until he crossed into Logan County. 

The landscape wasn't all that different - nature never had the same defined boundaries as man and the mountains and creeks, the hollers and the wide blue sky, all bled into each other. But it still wasn't quite the same: the colours were shaded differently, the air holding a scent that was familiar yet made strange. The ineffable -  _he liked that word_ \- qualities that marked out one state from another, the hand and the word of God or man notwithstanding.

He concentrated on these things and whatever stretch of road happened to be in front of him at the time. He tried hard, very hard, not to think about the road behind and what was there but it still kept filtering through,  _she_ was still there. Always. Sitting out on the porch, the cigarette she had barely smoked burning down between her fingers while she laughed and told him about her day at the salon. Singing under her breath, off-key and a little out of tune, while she moved around the house or sat over her sewing machine. At night she was his succubus, haunting his dreams until dawn took her from his arms. She would insert herself that way even in daylight, all soft curves, willing, and reaching for him, her eyes heavy with desire.

Her body stretched out on the dining room table, her blood seeping into the wood and her face etched with pain and fear and she had been  _sorry_ . She had clung to his hand and he remembered that more than anything. He made it that way.

She had told him that she loved him, said the words - more than once - that he had waited most of his life to hear; she had said it again just before he walked out of the door for the last time and he wished that she hadn't. 

But it hadn't been that long for her, not so long that it would take deep, that it would hurt too much when it was gone. Maybe, in the end, she'd think of him kindly, and he could live with that. 

He pulled over at one of the truck-stops along the way, bought gas and a cup of coffee. He settled at one of the picnic benches that were bolted to a patch of concrete and sat and felt the sunshine and the breeze. It was unseasonably hot, the air dry and everything looked a little faded. Not the greatest beauty spot in the world, probably not even in the county, but it was pretty enough for a roadside stop. Boyd pulled out his phone, switched it on, and it beeped, loud, repeatedly. He scrolled through the names of the missed calls. Johnny, Ava, Raylan. He frowned at the last one, hesitated for a moment, turned the phone back off and slipped it into his pocket. He turned back to his coffee. It was watery, a burnt taste on the back of its bitterness but he drank it anyway, the liquid scorching his fingers through the thin paper cup. 

His mama had had endless stories about her home-state and her kin. His kin, come to that. The stories were never the same twice and he wondered if any of them had been true; she had passed before he'd been old enough to talk to her about it properly. 

He'd wondered sometimes how it had happened, his daddy and his mama: so opposite and yet she had always been so strong, so sure about everything. Or she had seemed to be. And Bo had been a force of nature, irresistible despite his many faults. Maybe it had been that; or maybe people just ended up together and made the best of it. He had never wanted that. Ava came into his mind, again, and he screwed up the paper cup, tossed it, headed back down the road. 

Because of his sin, Cain had been a wanderer. His people had been farmers and he had killed with his touch; unable to raise his crops, he had had to move on. It was not the only interpretation of Cain's curse, not even the one that he had told to his half-witted followers in the commando days but now it was the version that returned to him. Cain the outcast; Cain the murderer; Cain with the mark, just as he had a mark upon his skin, the one he had asked for, shown off, used to call others to his own ends. 

It still didn't go as deep, burn as hard as Ava's blood, sticky, on his hands. He could never run far enough to rid himself of that. That was his curse, that was the mark that would follow him, not that symbol he had inked on his arm. 

There were few vehicles on this stretch of road and its emptiness suited him. The sign telling him he was welcome to Hunter's Creek looked as battered and weathered as any in Harlan. A handful of farmsteads straggled across the landscape, some of them so broken down it was hard to tell if they were inhabited or not. Hunter's Creek called itself a town and its citizens had every right to call it whatever they wanted but it seemed little more than a worn-down community spread against the wilderness. 

The only other trucks were the wrecked, rusting hulks squatting in front of scraps of wood that had once been houses. And then the patrol car swung out from a side-road and stayed just far enough back for him to know it was following him. Boyd waited until it closed the gap and its lights flashed, the siren sounding, in the same way he had known a hundred times before; he slowed and pulled over, cut the engine and kept his hands on the wheel. It was the war of nerves now and he was used to that, too. Over a minute before the door opened and a figure eased out. Boyd waited, patient, without apprehension but with a great deal of wariness. 

The man walked easily, that slightly rolling gait designed to look like a brawler. Not an imposing figure, a contained one; a little too heavy to be called slight but with a wiry toughness. When he reached Boyd's truck and bent down, one hand on the window frame, he brought with him a sense of menace more than authority. A thug with a shield and a gun. His eyes were very dark and didn't flicker with anything, not even the faint smile that pulled back over his teeth. 

'Mind showing me your licence, friend?' 

'Sure.' 

Boyd handed it over, stared absently through the windshield. 

The papers were turned over, examined. Boyd could hear him breathing noisily down his nose. 'We don't get many visitors down these parts. Can't remember last time we got anybody from out of state.' 

'I'm just passing through,' Boyd said, calmness that could seem pleasant. The dark eyes fixed on his face and there was a slight quirk around the mouth, almost like a spasm. 

'Where you headed?' 

'Down to Mallory.' 

He nodded slowly. He rubbed the licence between his fingers like it was something he was in a mind to tear up. 'Well...' He leaned in toward the window, handed Boyd the licence back. 'You drive safe now, Mister Crowder.' 

'I always try.' 

The car stayed behind him almost until he had reached the outskirts of the town proper, before turning off and kicking up dust along a road that twisted through trees. Boyd blew out a breath and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. 

The town was the usual collection of storefronts, flat-beds parked outside. Boyd slid into a space outside the diner, stretched the cramp out of his legs after so long behind the wheel. He stopped at the convenience store, bought a newspaper; the girl behind the counter watched him with polite disinterest and she smiled with the mechanical rictus of someone who's been instructed to always be polite. He headed for the diner. 

The waitress was cheerful in a bright yellow uniform that didn't quite fit; it strained across her breasts and the buttons squeaked when she breathed in. But she flashed him a bright smile and started pouring coffee even before he'd asked. No need to, really. Every one drank coffee. 

'What's good?' 

'Ham and eggs.' Her head tilted, her eyes crinkling under their coating of blue powder. 'Mind you, it's pretty hard to mess up ham and eggs.' 

He knew a couple of places in Harlan that could manage just that but he returned her smile easily and nodded. 

'We do real good french toast, goes great with the ham.' 

Another smile; he gritted his teeth behind it. 'I'll take some toast, thank-you.' 

It pleased her. She called out the order to the chef, disappeared into a back room and for a time there was silence broken only by the rattling of pans and crockery and the tinny buzz of a radio coming from the kitchen. Two old-timers sat in a booth at the back, looking like they'd sat like that every day for the last twenty years and had probably run out of things to talk about nineteen of them ago. 

Boyd opened his newspaper, folded back the pages, took out a pen and tapped it against the pattern of black and white squares. 

The street door rattled and Boyd glanced toward it instinctively. A big man, slow moving, with a wide, flat face, thinning sandy hair and pale eyes. He nodded at the two old men, pulled himself up onto the stool the next but one to Boyd's. 

'Hot day,' he said. 

Boyd glanced at him and was met by the pale eyes peering at him with gentle curiosity. 

'Yeah.' 

The waitress came out again for the newcomer and her greeting was even more cheerful - 'Hey there, sugar' - and she poured out more coffee. 

'You eating?' 

'I'll take pie if you've got it, Sandrine.' 

'We sure do. Apple, not long fresh. You want more coffee, honey?' This last to Boyd and he blinked at her and thanked her and his mug was refilled. Sandrine disappeared again. 

'Yours the truck with the Kentucky plates?' 

Boyd didn't look up. 'It is.' 

'Huh. I ain't never been to Kentucky. Always said I would, go see that Kentucky Derby y'all got over there, but I never got to it.' 

'Well, life is long.' The words found their way out before he could stop them and she was there again, blonde hair stirring in the breeze and framed against the roll of hills. She hadn't laughed when he had told her his stupid little secret, that long-ago dream he still thought about sometimes, something he had never told to anyone; she had been amused but she hadn't laughed and he loved her for that. For that and for so many things. 

He pushed her away, focused on the words and the white squares. 

_Cochran's Seasonal Affective Disorder (10,5)_ raised a smile and he wrote in  _summertime blues_ .

'Crossword, huh?' The big man again, his voice pleasant and curious. 

_Messenger flying in a hurry! (11)_

'Uh-huh.' 

He translated it as  _quicksilver_ .

'Damn, don't look like you even stop to think about it.' There was admiration in the tone, almost something wistful. 

Boyd sighed and closed the paper. He could just get up and leave but somehow he liked this amiable man with the patient eyes. 'Just a lot of practice.' 

There was a slow, wide smile. 'Don't think that would help me any, son, I can't even do a wordsearch.' A pause and then a large hand was extended. 'Ronnie.' 

'Boyd.' His hand was clasped in rough, scarred fingers and shaken firmly. 

'Good to know you, Boyd.' 

The food arrived, glistening eggs, tender ham, generous slabs of toast and a pot of syrup. It was good, very good, and he surprised himself by his own appetite as he started to eat. His new friend picked lazily at his pie, drank his coffee, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and turned towards Boyd again. 

'So, what brings you down this way?' 

He hesitated for a moment, lips pressing together. Ronnie held up a hand. 'I don't mean nothing by it - we just don't get that many people stopping by unless they're truckers or suchlike.' 

'So I've been told: I already met your Deputy Sheriff.' 

There was a shadow in Ronnie's eyes then, sudden, and he frowned, ran the edge of one thumbnail along his lower lip. 'Lowell takes his job real serious.' 

Boyd nodded, tore off a piece of the toast. Ronnie was still prodding at his pie, still frowning. 

'I'm from a small town, too; I know how it goes.' 

'Where's that?' 

'Harlan.' 

Ronnie nodded, wise, as though the name might actually mean something to him and he digested it along with a forkful of pie smothered in cream. 

'My mama was from these parts,' Boyd said after moments had slid by. 'Mallory. I had a mind to see it.' 

Ronnie's face cleared. 'No fooling. And you came all this way just for that?' 

He smiled slightly. 'Well, Kentucky ain't all that far off.' 

A slow nod. 'I guess.' Ronnie poured more sugar into his coffee, stirred it. 'Harlan, huh? That's mining country, ain't it?' 

One corner of Boyd's mouth quirked. 'I didn't know we were so famous outside our home state.' 

'Saw a film about it once. One of them documentaries. I like them. The Discovery Channel and all that. You ever watch that?' 

'From time to time.' 

'It's got some good stuff,' Ronnie told him earnestly. Boyd nodded. 'You a miner?' 

Whether it was one day or one week, one year or twenty, once you'd been down that hole you were a miner. Coal dust that got into your hair, into your skin, into everything so deep that sometimes you'd swear you could still taste it. Boyd nodded and took some of his coffee, swallowed down its hot bitterness. 

'Guess you'd know something about dynamite, then.' 

Boyd glanced sideways. Nothing in the man's face to suggest some sinister motive; either Ronnie was as disingenuous as he seemed or he was the best damn actor Boyd had ever met. 

'You could say I know one end of a stick from the other,' he said, light. 

Sandrine bustled over, scooping up plates; she was chewing furiously on a piece of gum, flashes of white teeth as she moved about. 'You boys all done?' 

'Thanks.' Boyd tossed a few notes onto the counter and waved away the change. Sandrine grinned at him. It was late afternoon, low sunshine slanting through the windows. The place was starting to fill up, people coming in for dinner before heading home. The radio was drowned out by the growing buzz of voices. Boyd scrubbed at his face, ran his fingers through his hair, a deep weary ache dragging at his muscles. Not much beyond Hunter's Creek and Mallory was still some way off. 

'Is there a motel hereabouts?' 

Ronnie scratched the end of his nose thoughtfully. 'Well, yes, there is, but I can't honestly recommend it.' He heaved himself off his stool and climbed onto the one beside Boyd. 

'How much of a hurry are you in to get where you're going?' 

Boyd's head tilted and he kept his eyes on the man's face. 'Why?' 

'I got a farm, not a big place, just me and my daughter-in-law and her kid. We need some work doing.' 

Boyd cleared his throat, a soft sound. 'I've never raised any crops.' 

Ronnie shook his head. 'It ain't for that. We need some land cleared, stumps blasting and such. The young fellow who'd usually do it for us moved on and we can't raise him. I'd do it myself but my eyesight ain't what it was for that kind of thing and you need some real steady hands.' A pause. 'Can offer you bed and board in exchange for your trouble and you'd be helping us out. Just a few days.' 

'I don't want to intrude.' 

'Ain't no intrusion and it's a sight more comfortable than that pit that gets called the motel, I can tell you.' 

Boyd stared down at his hands linked loosely on the counter; he looked up. 'That's mighty white of you, Ronnie.' He saw Raylan Givens' cynical eyes and shook it off. 

The Lefferts' place was a pretty farmstead, a white-washed house on a stretch of land against green hills. Boyd climbed out of his truck, walked over to where Ronnie was slowly pulling himself out of his. 

'What happened to your barn?' 

'It got burned down.' There was the same dryness as when he had talked about the sheriff. Lowell. Buscombe had been the name on the tag. Lowell Buscombe. Boyd would remember that. He followed Ronnie into the house. 

'Hey, Arlene.' In the kitchen and she stood up from where she'd been bent by the stove. A tall woman, dark hair and eyes, strong features. She'd have been good-looking if she'd smiled. 

'Who's this?' 

'Boyd-' Ronnie broke off, swung around inquisitively. 

'Crowder.' 

'Boyd Crowder.' 

Arlene Lefferts rolled her eyes impatiently. 'Well, what's he doing here?' 

'He's going to do that blasting for us. He's a Kentucky boy, on his way down to see his mama's kin in Mallory.' 

Before the sun sets, Boyd thought, everyone in Hunter's Creek would know his name, where he was from and where he was going. 

Her dark eyes moved between them, suspicion written into every line of her face. One hand raised, helpless, dropped down again; she shook her head. 'Ronnie...' 

Boyd shifted, feet scraping against the linoleum. 'Maybe I should go.' 

One of Ronnie's heavy hands landed on his upper arm. 'It's all right, son, you stay right where you are.' Easy, unconcerned. He shot Boyd a long-suffering look, as though Arlene were someone to be humoured. 'Arlene, we need someone to do that blasting for us and Boyd here is a powder-man all the way from Harlan. He takes his eggs kind of runny but that's about the only thing I can see against him.' 

She closed her eyes, blocking it all out. When she opened them her face looked riven with tiredness and worry. 'I can't pay you.' 

'I know. Ronnie here's offered me room and board in exchange.' 

A breath was sucked in that seemed to go all the way down to her toes; her shoulders went down. 'Fine. Fine, all right ... whatever. Mister ... Crowder? I'll show you the place.' 

She shot Ronnie a look. Ronnie grinned and turned to Boyd and winked and he felt laughter rising up that he bit back and he followed Arlene out of the house, across a stretch of dry earth to a little wooden structure with dark eyes of windows and a heavy door. Its insides were a small room, sparse, with a couch, a hard-backed chair, a table and a hot-plate; a smaller room led off that was the bedroom with a bathroom attached. 

Arlene leaned against the door-frame, watched him as he placed his bag in the middle of the rag-rug on the floor of what would be called the living room. 

'It ain't much,' she said. 

'Ronnie said it's better than the local hostelry and from what I know of those establishments I have no doubt that he is being generous to them mentioning them in the same breath.' 

She was not to be amused; she stayed with her arms folded, chin lifted and her dark eyes on him, appraising. 

'You running from some kind of trouble?' 

Boyd met her gaze, slid his hands into his pockets. 'I'm not running from the law, if that's what you mean.' 

'I suppose it is in a way.' She took a moment. 'You ever been in jail?' 

'Yes, ma'am. Twice.' 

Her eyes widened, mouth opened slightly and then closed and then she said, 'Well, you're honest, I'll say that for you.' 

One corner of his mouth turned up. 'I can think of a few people who would take issue with that assessment.' He saw cynical eyes again under the brim of a hat pulled low, and a smile that was only half amused. 

'What were you in jail for? If you don't mind my asking.' It came with a healthy coating of sarcasm. She still hadn't altered her position. 

'First time because I had stopped paying my taxes.' 

She blew out a breath, weight shifting from one hip to the other. 'Can't hardly blame you for that. I don't remember the last time the government's done anything for me.' 

They exchanged brief knowing smiles that faded and she said, 'And the second?' 

'That...' His eyes dropped, came back up to her face. 'That would be a long story, Ms Lefferts; the short version is that my time was served on a gun charge and that I made some mistakes.' 

'Were the mistakes about getting caught or what led up to that?' 

He laughed then, something he hadn't done for a long time, it seemed, and the feel of it was good. 'Probably a little of both.' 

Eyebrows raised, her dark eyes took him in again; she pushed herself away from the door-frame 'Well... We eat at seven.' 

She closed the door behind her. 

Boyd took a circuit of his new surroundings. It was clean and as empty as any motel room. His predecessor had taken everything except for an open half-pound bag of sugar, a disposable razor still in its wrapping and a flyer for a live music night at the local bar. He sat down on the edge of the bed and tried not to think about anything at all. 


	4. Scarred Earth

 

 

What had been the barn was a crumbling mass of burnt wood, grey ash and scorched earth. It had burnt fast and fierce. Some of the surrounding grass was burnt, brown and wilted under the heat. But still a relatively small area. No trees, no woodland, nearby to have brought the blaze onto the farm. Part of one wall was still standing and Boyd examined the pattern of sooty marks.

He brushed off his hands, walked slowly towards the house.

His truck was still parked out front and he stopped suddenly when he saw the hood up and someone bent over it, elbow deep in the workings of his engine. Arlene's kid, he realised, and relaxed again.

Lee Lefferts had his mother's dark hair and eyes and one day might have something of Ronnie's height and breadth of shoulder. At the moment he was fifteen, rangy, awkward, and had shown more interest in Boyd's truck than he had in Boyd. He might have spoken five words during the meal the night before and two of those would more probably be classified at grunts.

'You lost something in there?'

The boy started, hit his head on the hood. 'Shit!' He glared at Boyd.

Boyd had his hands in his pockets, watched him with amusement. There were oily streaks across Lee's face.

'What the hell was that for?' Lee rubbed the back of his head, looked Boyd up and down. 'Damn, cat's make more noise when they walk.'

'That was just a reminder that a man has a right to his own property and for that property not to be interfered with.'

Lee's hand dropped, along with his eyes and he shrugged. 'Sorry. I guess. You got some loose plugs in there.'

'I've heard that before.'

The boy squinted at him, frowning. 'That meant to be a joke?'

Boyd smiled slightly. 'Meant to be. Loose plugs, huh?' He put his eyebrows up. 'You going to fix them for me?'

The boy responded to the challenge, chin going up. 'I can.'

'Well, well. Lee Lefferts is a man of talent.'

The chin was set stubbornly, along with a scowl. 'You being funny again?'

He laughed, light, shook his head. 'Not this time, son.'

He left the boy with the truck, crossed the stretch of dry earth and grizzled earth, skirting part of the house until he reached the kitchen door and rapped on it. After a moment it was opened, abrupt, and Arlene drew a healthy frown across her face.

'What do you think you are, a process-server?'

'My mama taught me it was polite to knock.'

She blew out a breath, rubbed her forehead with the back of her wrist. 'Honestly, I thought you'd have lit out by now. Come on in, I've got breakfast going.'

The air was heavy with bacon, eggs, toast and the rich smell of coffee; he took a mug off her and sat at the table, nursing it between his hands. Her movements were efficient but not particularly fast, a languid grace in the curve of her arm and the gentle flick of her wrist. Her skin gleamed under the heat, tendrils of black hair already clinging to her neck and the sun was nowhere near its highest. Boyd watched her closely, disinterestedly, and thought about the scorch marks on the standing wall of what had been the barn.

'I was just having a word with your boy Lee.'

She turned to him. 'You talked to Lee?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

The frown built itself again, burrowing deep into her forehead. 'And he talked back?'

Taking a mouthful of coffee, Boyd choked against it, wiped his mouth and looked up at her. 'Not much, but some.'

Her eyebrows climbed up and she stared at him, taking him in. 'Well... Nice to know he ain't turned completely mute. Lee isn't exactly what you'd call...'

'Loquacious.'

'What?'

He roused himself. 'Talkative.'

She looked at him. 'He ain't that. What was that you said?'

'Loquacious.'

'What does that mean?'

'Talkative.'

A pause. 'Right.' Her eyes narrowed a fraction; she turned back to the stove. 'Ronnie tells me you're a miner,' she said after a while.

'I was. I've held more than one position with the mining company but I am no longer in their employ.'

She cracked eggs into a bowl, held it in the crook of her arm. 'So now you just go around doing work for folks who need it?'

Boyd laughed softly. 'Well, this is my first time at it, Ms Lefferts.'

The whisk beat against the side of the bowl. 'You can drop all that Ms Lefferts stuff - my name's Arlene.' She put the bowl on the counter, ran a hand through her hair, blew out a breath. 'I know I must seem real unfriendly. I don't mean anything by it, it's just-' Her lips pressed together. 'Living out here you get out of the habit of having company. You're willing to do this work for us and I'm grateful for that. Takes a load off.'

She tossed loose strands of hair away from her face, a sharp movement. A big load she was carrying, this woman. Boyd drank more of his coffee.

'Mind you, I don't figure I was ever really the friendly type. Bill, that was my husband, he was like Ronnie - could talk to anyone.'

Boyd smiled, fingers linked loose around his mug. 'Ronnie is a character.'

There was a quirk at the corner of her mouth then, something that softened her face and her fine dark eyes. 'Funny, that's what he said about you.'

Boyd laughed and the almost-smile across Arlene's face widened a fraction.

When Ronnie came in he clapped his hands, grinned at Boyd and patted Arlene on the arm.

'Hope you're ready to start work this morning, Boyd.'

'I am.'

'See?' Ronnie looked at his daughter-in-law. 'Didn't I tell you?'

She rolled her eyes. 'Sit down, Ronnie. Where's Lee?'

'He's got his head shoved in the engine of my truck.'

'Wh-' Her lips compressed again. 'Damn, Boyd, I'm sorry, I'll-'

He shook his head. 'It's fine. As long as it still goes when he's done with it.'

'Only thing he's interested in,' she muttered. 'I hope you like your eggs scrambled.' Arlene glanced at the bowl and shrugged. 'Guess it's too bad if you don't.'

The kitchen door rattled, loud, and Lee spilled in, his face more streaked with oil than before. He headed for the table.

'I hope you're planning on washing those hands.'

The scowl returned and he stomped towards the kitchen sink.

'I don't know where he gets it,' Arlene said, low beneath her breath. Boyd caught Ronnie's eye and neither of them said anything.

ooOoo

The area to be blasted was hard, rocky, earth packed solid and stumps of trees that weren't all that far off being petrified. Turning it into anything resembling viable farming land would be a hard job and a long one.

There were stretches of earth around the farm that looked well rested, soil that was dark and rich would bring forth the abundance to keep them fed and comfortable and content in those things.

Except that those long stretches of dark earth had not been farmed for a while, even he, who had never laid his hand to that work, could see that.

He laid the wires and the charges in a regular pattern and he still gave up the same old cry as though there were anyone beside him or even in the area to know what it would mean. Fire flaring against daylight wasn't the same as the dance of flame against the night of deep under the earth rock. At the end of the shift there would be that moment when the dark would give way to sunlight but now it was always the sunlight and there was no disguising that the work was hard and bleak and brutal and devoid of all romance.

He didn't mind that.

He could work and not think and he was all right with that because it meant that he was too tired to think about her.

Halfway through the second day he was headed back towards the house for lunch when he saw the truck tear along the track, pull up in front of the house. The two young men who got out were thick with muscle - one more than the other - dressed in faded denims and T-shirts that drooped around their bodies. Arlene came out onto the porch of the house and there was a twitch in her fingers that was visible at any distance. Boyd moved faster and when he reached the small grouping it was in time to hear the end of the words of the one who seemed to be in charge.

'-help clear it out.'

Arlene had her hands on her hips and she put her eyebrows up and her voice was high and tight. 'Well, that's mighty nice of you, seeing as you were the cause and all.'

Thick blonde hair in long waves, a frayed T-shirt cut to show off his body and a flat, slack face. The younger one looked more tubby than muscular when up-close. He looked like it would hurt him to think.

Boyd moved easily and he was almost on top of them before the head of the older one moved and the pin-hole eyes in his fleshy face widened. Boyd placed himself between them and the house.

'Who the fuck are you?'

'Well now, that ain't hardly polite, is it?'

The slack faces were slacker. Blondie raised his chin, his shoulders squaring, a smile on his face like he thought he was clever.

It was a horrible resemblance and Boyd felt his fists balling, a sudden desire to destroy, to obliterate that face and that stupid, would-be-knowing smile and all of the damage that it would do.

He caught that fury and pushed it down and tilted his head and looked at the two in front of him. They were just small-time thugs and too stupid to know when they were being used.

'We came to clear the barn,' the older one said.

'That's right neighbourly of you,' Boyd said, calm. He watched them. 'It seems to me, though, that if Arlene wanted it cleared out she'd ask the people who were working for her.'

There was a whine of the screen door behind him and footsteps on the porch, one set heavy and the other lighter. He didn't turn to look at them, saw the flicker in the eyes of the man closest to him and heard the lock-and-load of a shotgun behind him.

The younger one, with his doughy face and screwed-up eyes, darted uncertain looks between his companion and Boyd. Boyd tilted his body slightly, catching those piggy eyes.

'Looks to me as though you are having a crisis of conscience, son; although, that may be overstating the case somewhat. Perhaps you're more familiar with being told what to do than deciding it for yourself but I can tell you that if you make that choice to see the world as it is and the lies that men will tell to bend others to their will, then you might realise the error of your ways, might realise the exploitation to which you have been subjected.'

He shifted on his feet, uncertain eyes darting toward his companion. 'Cody-'

'Shut up, Garrett!'

Boyd straightened, smiled. 'Cody and Garrett. I am obliged to you boys - I always prefer to know the names of the men with whom I am conversing.'

Cody folded his arms across his wide chest. 'We still don't know your name.'

His voice was a low purr, lips drawn back showing his teeth. 'I'm Boyd Crowder and it's best you'd be remembering that name. Now, as far as I can see you have not been invited upon this property and as the law in the great state of West Virginia is no different than anywhere else in this mighty nation of ours, these good folk are well within their rights to shoot you in the head if you take one more step. So, boys, what will it be? And bear in mind that this may the most important decision that you have made in your lives up until this point.'

The one called Garrett shifted his feet again, murmuring something low with a whining note that Boyd couldn't hear but the other one shook his head against it, like a fly he was trying to lose. But his eyes were clouded and uncertain. They darted around and his tongue swiped across his lower lip.

'We ain't done with you, asshole.'

'I have no doubt,' Boyd murmured and watched as their truck turned sharply and kicked up dust as it sped through the holler.

It was Ronnie with the shotgun, he discovered when he turned around and found the three of them on the porch. There was a tremor in Ronnie's hands that had nothing to do with fear.

'Your neighbours seem friendly,' Boyd said when he reached the steps up to the porch.

'Those Jenkins boys aren't friends to no-one 'cept-' Arlene pressed her lips together. She turned suddenly on Lee. 'And you stay way from them!'

'I ain't got nothing to do with them,' he said and he slammed into the house.

Boyd mounted the steps, rested against the railings. 'Cody and Garrett Jenkins. Are they the jokers who burned down your barn?'

'I think s-' Arlene sucked in a breath. 'How did you know that?'

'I've seen enough fires in my time time to recognise arson.'

Ronnie had lowered the shotgun, was using it like a crutch. He looked too old and too tired.

'Maybe it was them,' Arlene said. 'Maybe it wasn't. Don't really matter much now anyhow, the barn's gone and all our crop with it.' She paused. 'I got lunch ready.' And she went into the house.

 

ooOoo

 

The truck followed a road that along the line of the creek, pulled into a clearing just beyond the tree-line and Cody Jenkins and his brother climbed out.

'What the hell's so important you got to call me out here?' Lowell Buscombe glared at them, belligerent. 'And I told you to get round the Lefferts' place - why ain't you there?'

' 'Cos she's got some asshole shacked up there with her. Dumb bitch.' Cody spat on the ground.

'You watch your mouth there, boy.' Lowell's hand rested on the butt of his gun, fingers curling and uncurling.

'So what did he do, rough the two of you up?'

They exchanged looks, Garrett trailing the toe of one boot through the dust. Cody tossed hair out of his eyes, stuck out his chin. 'He threatened us. And old man Lefferts had a shotgun.'

'Ronnie hasn't been able to shoot straight for years,' Lowell said, quiet. 'What did this other asshole say?'

More shuffling. 'It wasn't what he said,' Garrett said. 'It was more, y'know, the way he said it.'

'Jesus Christ.' Lowell looked at them in disgust. 'Well, ain't you a couple of prairie flowers.'

'We can go back-' Cody started.

'Shit, Cody, I think if you two slunk off 'cos someone called you names, I think the guy has the measure of you. I don't supposed you managed to get his name.'

'Yeah, we did!' Something of Cody's swagger came back, shoulders big and square. 'Calls himself Boyd Crowder.'

Lowell's eyes narrowed. 'Huh.'

There was silence.

'So, what you want us to do now?'

'Nothing.' Lowell pulled open the door of the patrol car. 'Right now you don't do anything. Not until I tell you.'

 

ooOoo

 

The truck was running smoother after Lee's tinkering, the engine quieter. Boyd was impressed and he told the boy so. Lee had muttered, stared at the ground, but there was a flush up his neck.

Supplies were needed from town and Boyd volunteered to drive in, feeling a need to be somewhere other than the farm. Lee went with him and it was largely a silent drive, which Boyd was fine with.

Now and then Lee would twist around in his seat and in the end he said, 'That's a lot of books you got there.'

'There are a few,' Boyd agreed.

It was a nice day, not as hot as it had been and the air felt clear, fresh. It blew through the half-opened windows.

Lee thought it over, squinted at Boyd. 'You a teacher or something?'

'No, I just like to read.'

'Huh. I never really got into all of that. Y'know. Poetry and shit.'

Boyd let out a breath of laughter. 'There's more to books than poetry.'

Lee shrugged, awkward. 'I guess. Just don't see the point, is all. I mean, it's just a bunch of stuff that someone made up. Don't mean nothing.'

Back to silence. Boyd fiddled with the stereo, skipping through a selection until he found what he was looking for. 'You like Springsteen?'

Lee shrugged again. 'He's okay. Kinda old, though.' A pause. 'I know this song.' A spark more interest in his voice.

'You think it's a good song?'

'I guess.'

'You think it's a true song?'

Another shrug.

'You know what it's about?'

There was a heavy breath blown out. 'I ain't stupid.'

'Wasn't saying you are, I just asked a question.'

More silence.

'It's about men who've lost everything,' Lee said, the words going down to the fingers twisting around in his lap.

'It is. And that's who Tom Joad was, a man who lost everything but he still kept on going, kept fighting.'

'Who was he?'

'A sharecropper,' Boyd said, 'he'd been in jail for killing a man and when he got back to his family's farm there was nothing but dust. They had to move on, they started out for California because everyone had told them that it was a new promised land. Lots of people still believe that. It never was, of course, and it still isn't. But they still go.'

Lee's head was up, turned to him.

'Take a look on the back-seat. Go on.'

The boy looked at him, long suffering, then twisted around, heaving himself over the back of his seat.

'You find one there - Steinbeck.'

'I got it,' muffled, and Lee slid back into his seat.

'Take a look through.'

He was rewarded with another mutinous stare but the pages were flipped open. 'Tom Joad...' Lee frowned. 'I don't get it. I thought he was a real person.'

'He represented a lot of real people. Just because the story is written down in a book doesn't mean it ain't true.'

They fell back into silence. And now and then Lee turned a page.

In town it was busy but not crowded. They headed to the general store, armed with Arlene's list and curious eyes followed them as they passed.

He should check-in with Johnny, but didn't feel in the mood. Johnny would either be bragging or whining or both and he wasn't up to it. Lee slouched along, hands deep in his pockets and spent some time talking to a boy of about his own age with startlingly fair hair and an unfortunate rash of spots across his face. Boyd left them to it until Lee caught him up again.

Back out on the street they put the bags on the flatbed and Lee's eyes darted toward the diner.

'You want to get some pie before we head back?'

There was a flicker, then another shrug and another mutter. They went to the diner. Sandrine was still chirpy, greeting Boyd like an old friend and casting sympathetic glances at Lee. They ate the pie, Boyd drank coffee and tried to remember just how much of a pain-in-the-ass he had been as a teenager.

But there was something companionable when they slid off the stools and headed back out. The sun was lowering, the glare rising up from metal and the tarmac and they had nearly reached Boyd's truck when he stopped in the middle of the street, staring at the person sitting up on the hood, back against the windshield, face turned up to the sun.

'What the hell-'

She opened her eyes, looked at him, slipped down off the hood and took a few steps towards them. Her gaze travelled over Lee, moved off him and stayed on Boyd.

'So, this is where you're at.'

'Is she your girlfriend?' Lee asked, interested.

Boyd moistened his lips. 'No.'

Ava's eyes flashed. 'Yes,' she said.


	5. Faraway, So Close

 

In the end it had been good luck more than good management. Boyd had never taken the most direct route between any two points over anything in his life and Ava didn't see why that should change now. But there were only so may detours that he could take if he wanted to reach Mallory and in the end she had followed the route that she guessed would be the most likely one. Driving through Hunter's Creek had been like driving through Harlan and when she had seen his truck parked on the street she had almost laughed out loud. 

One pick-up looked much like another but this one had been outside of her house enough times and for long enough and she had ridden in it and she knew it. She pulled up, didn't bother looking for him after that because he would come to where she was eventually. 

She hadn't been expecting that he would run to her and catch her up and take her home - not that she would have minded any of that - but she had not expected that he would deny her. 

The boy who had been with him had watched them with undisguised interest and when, in the end, Ava had introduced herself to him he had wiped his palm on his jeans, taken her hand and told her his name was Lee. 

He had stared at her; Boyd had worn that remote look, like he'd been carved out of stone, the one that she particularly disliked. 

There had not been much discussion, not out there on the street surrounded by strangers and watched by curious eyes. Ava had got back in her jeep, kept a careful watch on his truck as she followed it. She was fairly sure that he wouldn't cut and run, not while he had the boy with him, but she couldn't quite put it past him. 

The farmstead, all homely and quiet, was the last place she would have thought of him and it was something of a relief, a reassuring contrast to some of her wilder imaginings. 

When they pulled up out front a man unfolded himself from a chair on the porch, a big man, bear-like, and he ambled down the short flight of steps. He looked at her, blinked, looked at Boyd and grinned. 

'Hell, I never done so good anytime I've been down to the store.' 

There was something around Boyd's mouth, tight and strained, like an attempt at a smile. 

'Ronnie, this is Ava. Ava, Ronnie Lefferts.' 

Ava smiled, wide, held out her hand. 'It's real nice to meet you, Mister Lefferts.' 

Her fingers with enveloped in a large, warm hand. 'And it sure is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ava. You all the way down from Kentucky, too?' 

'I am.' 

'Well, Boyd here is doing some real good work for us and we're mighty glad to have him. He didn't tell me he had such a fine little lady waiting for him, though, otherwise I would have had him speed it up.' 

'That's real sweet of you, Mr Lefferts.' 

He patted the hand that he still had hold of. 'You can call me Ronnie. Guess you're looking to stop with us, huh?' 

'Well-' 

The screen-door opened and Arlene came out, stopping at the top of the steps. 

'That's Arlene,' Ronnie told Ava. 'Hey, Arlene, come down and say hi to Ava, she's Boyd's girl. She'll be stopping here; no problem in that, is there?' 

Arlene's hands moved from her hips, raised in the air, a helpless shrug. 'Why not? Seems like we're running an open house these days.' She went back inside. 

'Never mind her, she's been on with the bank.' Ronnie lowered his voice: 'Always turns her into right sourpuss.' 

'Can't say I blame her,' Ava said, trying to keep the smile on her face and her voice light. 

'Come on, I'll show you where you can put up. Lee, grab her bags.' 

Lee was still for a moment, then moved, fast, picking up the heaviest one and staggering slightly, trying not to let it show. 

Ronnie kept up a steady stream of chat as they walked and she made non-committal noises in response and was aware throughout of the dark presence following behind them, silent, hands deep in his pockets. 

'You two ain't married, are you? Didn't think so. I guess I should make one of you move into the house, seeing as how we're God-fearing folk and all, but I've always figured that the Almighty has more on his mind than what two consenting adults get up to.' Ronnie pushed open the door of the little domicile, stood back to let Ava pass through. She stood in the middle of the tiny front room and three pairs of footsteps followed her: one ponderous, one still staggering a little, one light and quick. She turned. Ronnie was grinning at her and Boyd had folded himself into a corner, head down. 

'Well, I'll leave you to get settled in.' 

'Thanks. And thank-you, Lee.' 

The boy put down her bag, mumbled something, darted his eyes up to her face, and fled. The door closed behind him and the ensuing silence coiled itself around them. 

'Your new friends seem nice. Should've known you'd find some widow-lady to take you in.' 

His head came up. 'It ain't like that.' Everything in him was coiled, contained. 'How...' He looked at her, frowning, an echo of that strange off-kilter look he had worn when he had first moved into the house. That he had worn when she had woken, groggy and aching after the doctor had fished out the bullet. She scratched at her shoulder and there was a spasm across his face, brief, and his eyes dropped again. 

She wanted to take hold of him and shake him; she wanted him to kiss her senseless. She wanted him. 

She said, 'Johnny told me.' 

He looked up again, puzzled. 'Johnny? But I didn't tell him where I'd be headed.' 

'You told him West Virginia and I remembered about your mama - couldn't see any other reason why you'd be wanting to come on down here.' She couldn't see why anyone would; she tossed the hair from her shoulders. 'I went through the old photographs and papers and I found the name of the place.' They were in her purse and she pulled them out, took a few steps that brought her closer to him and his eyes fixed on the photographs in her hand. He took them from her, slow, gazed at the face captured on the faded print. 

They had always been his, not Bowman's. He had brought them to the house once, a long time ago, before that first stint in prison, and she had been feeling charitable and she had kept them for him. 

'I worked it out. Not as dumb as I look.' 

A faint sigh and his gaze moved from the photographs to her face and he said, soft, 'Ava, I have never thought that of you.' 

The flare of green eyes had muted to something like summer leaves just before they turned to Fall. She took the inside of her lower lip between her teeth, bit down, released it. 'I'm sorry.' 

He looked as though she had slapped him, the words falling like a blow. 'Don't.' 

'But-' 

'You never say those words to me, Ava; you are never sorry.' 

'I-' She took in a breath, helpless. 'I'm apologising for what I said before you left. I didn't mean any of it.' 

_Hypocrite. Liar. Coward._

She hated that memory. The lines of his face relaxed. 

'I know that.' 

It was there in his eyes and she leaned towards him a little and he caught himself, pulled back, and his gaze was flat and moved past her. He kept hold of the photographs. 

'You shouldn't have come.' 

'Well, what the hell did you think I was going to do? Sit around at home and wait for when or if you decide to come back? We have a relationship here and it only seems right that both of us should get a say in it.' 

'And you had your say.' 

'I said I'm-' 

A tightening around his mouth. 

'I was mad then.' She paused. 'I'm still mad, but I might calm down if you stand still long enough for me to get there.' 

'It's over, Ava.' 

She shook her head. 

'Listen to me. You and me, it can't happen. I was a fool to think that it could work, but I know better now.' 

'Seemed to me like it was working just fine. Damn it, Boyd, we were happy together.' He had gone back to not looking at her. 'I know I was happy and you can't tell me that you weren't.' 

'Happiness doesn't come into it.' 

'Well, it should. It's not like there's so much of it about.' 

'You're better off, Ava. You should go home.' 

'Bullshit.' He blinked at her, startled. Her voice was calm but it was roughening at the edges. 'You worked that out because you're so smart? Because you know all the answers? You don't.' 

'I'm right about this.' 

She dragged her fingers through her hair, resisting the itch in her palm to hit him. 'You go right on telling yourself that. But there's only so long you can go on believing that lie and when you finally see sense, I'll still be here, because I ain't leaving.' She said the last words hard, heavy, stalked to the door, wrenched it open, slammed it behind her. Outside she took a moment, sucking in a breath down deep and holding it. What was it about men, she wondered, that made them think they always knew better; they'd make a decision and expect everyone else to go along with it. She was tired of fighting the same old fight but this time, with Boyd at least, this time it would be different. He had left her once before but she had known then that he would come back; now it would be harder but she wasn't giving in. 

Ava wandered aimlessly towards the front of the house, took in the wind of the road, the trees and the rise of blue hills behind. She turned at the sound of the door opening behind her. Arlene stepped out, paused for a moment when she saw Ava, then continued down the steps; she nodded at Ava, a stiff smile jerking the corners of her mouth, and headed for the flat-bed and its collection of groceries. 

'Can I give you a hand?' 

Dark eyes that were guarded and hard studied her and Arlene shrugged slightly. 'Thanks.' 

They heaved the bags into their arms. 

'I didn't know Boyd had a girl.' 

'Well, he does,' Ava replied shortly. 

'He didn't say nothing about anyone coming down here.' 

'If me staying here is a problem-' 

Arlene shrugged, one shoulder moving, keeping the laden paper-bag close to her chest. 'Don't really make no difference to me. Besides, Ronnie's already made the decision.' Flat. 

'There's a lot of that going around,' Ava murmured. 

'I got more things on my mind, to be honest.' 

Ava pressed her lips together, hard, set her teeth. 

The house was well-kept, home-like, with its slightly worn furnishings. The floorboards were dark, shiny and a faint scent of beeswax hung in the air. She followed Arlene down to the kitchen, put her bag on the table, opened her purse and pulled a few bills out of her wallet. 

'I don't want your money,' Arlene said. 

'I'd be paying it if I was putting up at a motel; only seems fair I should pay my board, wherever I am.' 

'Well...' Arlene's lips compressed, then her face relaxed a little. 'I won't say the money ain't welcome.' She took the notes, folded them into her pocket, started to unpack the bags. 'So, what do you when you ain't chasing halfway across the country after a man?' 

Ave folded her arms, eyebrows rising. 

Arlene blew out a breath, scratched the back of her neck. She leaned one hand against the counter. 'Y'know, I just heard that again and it came out a lot ruder than I meant. I-' 

'I'm a hairdresser.' 

'Oh.' Arlene's eyes widened and for a moment her gaze took in the whole of Ava's form. She raised one hand to her hair, self-conscious. 'Wow. I don't remember the last time I was at a salon.' 

She didn't need to tell Ava that; but Ava smiled, tolerant, and started to unload the other bag. 

'You don't need to do that. Sit down. You must have had a long drive.' 

Ava hesitated, then pulled out a chair. 'Thanks.' She linked her fingers together on top of the table and listened for the expected, familiar roar of a truck pulling away. 'So, you folks are farmers, huh?' 

'That's the idea. Don't seem to be much of anything at the moment.' 

Lee eased into the kitchen and Arlene glanced at him, then looked again. 'What are you so dressed up for?' 

'I'm not!' Defensive. He plucked the hem of his clean T-shirt. He nodded vaguely at Ava and she smiled back. 'You ever read _The Grapes of Wrath?_ ' he asked abruptly. 

Ava blinked. 'I- Uh... Yeah... A long time ago. In high-school, we had to read it.' 

He nodded wisely. 'It's a...' he searched for the word '... a true book.' 

'I ... guess it is. You reading it for school?' 

'No,' he said, and he was casual, fiddling with something on the counter. 'I'm just reading it.' 

Arlene lowered slowly the box of crackers she had unpacked, turned and looked at her son, hard. Lee didn't look at her, pushed at the unruly dark curls that tumbled across his forehead. 'I guess I'll see you later, Ava.' He said her name with a studied carelessness. 

'I guess.' She watched him with some amusement and when she turned back she saw the creases in Arlene's forehead. 'Everything okay?' 

Arlene started. 'Yeah. I- I just don't know when Lee has ever read a book before. Y'know - voluntarily.' 

Ava bit back a smile. 'Maybe it will take.' 

'Maybe. It couldn't do him any harm.' 

  


ooOoo 

  


Dinner would have been a very quiet affair if it hadn't been for Ronnie. They sat around the dining room table - against Lee's complaints, who preferred his meals taken in front of the TV - and Ronnie's warm expansiveness filled the silence. Ava had half-expected Boyd not to turn up at all but he had appeared at almost the last minute, been polite to his current hosts and made sure that he sat as far away from Ava as possible without actually leaving the room. He wore his dark cloud of introspection like a mantle. 

Boyd sat beside Arlene and neither of them said much. She picked at her food and her dark eyes were tired and troubled. 

Ronnie didn't really need anyone else in a conversation, although he clearly enjoyed an audience. Ava was a new victim and he could tell her the stories that he had probably told everyone else a hundred times before. He told them well, she had to admit, and even if he hadn't she still would have been grateful. 

All the while she could feel Boyd watching her, even if he never seemed to look at her. He had always watched her and it had always unsettled her; it unsettled her now but in a different way. 

Silence came down again, heavy, when they walked back to what Ronnie referred to, whimsically, as the worker's cottage. It was a still night, the air sweet and the stars clear, diamond-hard in a sky free of cloud. The night breeze stirred Ava's hair and they walked beside each other as though they were barely acquaintances. 

She remembered another night like this and how that one had ended, how they had hardly slept at all and when the sun had come, golden light filling the bedroom, she had felt happy and loved and remade. 

There was a chill on the air and she shivered. 

Inside the cottage she saw the neat pile of folded blankets on the couch. Frowning, Ava turned to him and when he had closed and latched the door he put his hands in his pockets and met her gaze. 

'What is that?' 

'I'll take the couch.' 

She stared at him. 'You are kidding me.' 

He sighed, blowing it out as though against a pain. Ava felt the rising burn of anger and smothered it and the searing in her chest, held up her hands. 'Fine. Seeing as how you're right about everything, this is just fine. I hope you sleep real well.' 

She left him there, walked through to the other room, sat down on the bed and held her head between her hands. 


	6. Set Fire to the Rain

 

After Ava had stormed out and when he was able to think straight, or as straight as he was able to think at all with her there and the scent of her perfume still on the air, Boyd had turned his phone back on. Raylan. Johnny. Raylan again.

Johnny had left a long rambling message about how Ava had got it out of him and it wasn't his fault. That was the leitmotif of the piece - of Johnny's life, if it came to that - it wasn't his fault. Boyd could almost smell the whiskey breath on his words and stopped listening before Johnny was done.

He could just go.

But he had made a promise to these people and he was determined to keep it, determined at the very least not to live up to his own worst expectations of himself in in this one thing.

Besides, if he took off now Ava would probably just follow after him. Maybe this way he could convince her, show her the truth of his words and in the end she would be the one to leave. And it would give him a few more days of her, seeing her, being near her. A few more memories to store up. She would be the one to leave this time, she would have to be. He had already left her twice and he didn't think he could do it again.

All through the night he was aware of her, could hear the rustle of sheets as she moved, the creak of the bed. He thought about the warmth of her body and the empty space beside her, about waking her, taking her, burying his face in the masses of her hair and breathing her in.

She would have to leave. It might just kill him if she didn't.

When the sky lightened to a steely grey he viewed it with relief. He dressed, moving with the stealthy quiet born of practice and necessity. And then he allowed himself one luxury, to stand in the doorway and watch her, just for a moment. In the dim light she was a tangle of sheets and blankets, hair across the pillow and her face slightly flushed with sleep, lips parted, one arm thrown across the space beside her. He would remain until she stirred, take that as notice to leave. She didn't move, apart from the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, deep and even. In the end he made himself go. The heat had broken overnight and when he was outside he shrugged on his jacket. A skin of thin grey cloud lay across the sky and the drizzle was so fine it wrapped around everything like mist. Boyd let himself into the house, easing open the kitchen door with the key that was left under a plant-pot.

The house held the breathless dormancy of occupants who are all safely asleep; somewhere between being alone and in company, it was an odd feeling - both comforting and distancing. Boyd filled the coffee pot, waited for it to filter through, stared sightlessly out of the window and the grey rectangle of a view. Everything beyond a few feet of ground was swaddled in the same fine mist, as though this were the last place standing left on Earth. When the coffee was ready he poured a mug, spooned in barely enough sugar to take the edge off its bitterness and drank it down, the steaming liquid spearing through.

A creak on the stairs, a heavy tread, and Ronnie appeared in the doorway, fully dressed and skin pink from hot water and a close shave. He didn't look surprised.

'You're up early.' He lowered himself into one of the kitchen chairs.

'I might say the same for you.'

Ronnie leaned back. 'At my age you don't need all that much sleep. That coffee you got going there?'

Boyd raised his mug. 'It is.'

'You mind pouring a fella a cup?'

They sat at the table. Ronnie blew on his coffee, took a sip and his forehead scrunched, eyes widening. 'Well, shit, if that don't you wake you up...' He took another sip. They sat. After a while Ronnie set the cup down on the table. 'That must have been one hell of a scrap.'

Boyd frowned. 'I don't follow.'

Ronnie hooked his thumbs into the loops of his jeans, stretched out his legs. 'You and Miss Ava. She don't seem like the sort of woman any man in his right mind would do the dirty on; and if a woman who looked like that had ever come chasing after me she wouldn't have to go all that far to get me.' He paused. 'You can tell me it's none of my business, and I know it ain't, I'm just a nosy old man. Fact is, I like you. I like her.'

Boyd smiled slightly at that, his face softening in a way it rarely did. 'In my experience, most people would find it somewhat of a challenge not to like Ava.' He fiddled with the handle on his mug. 'It isn't that simple.'

Coffee was drunk and the rain came down harder, a sharp spray against the windows and drumming on the roof. Ronnie roused himself. 'Come on outside. Arlene doesn't like me smoking in the house.'

He rolled his own cigarettes, laying out the leaves, fingers dextrous around the thin paper. The aroma was pungent, sweet, and he puffed contentedly, sending smoke out to greet the shimmering mist. 'I was married for over forty years,' he said, 'you'd think that in all that time I'd've learnt a lot but truth be told there was only one thing I ever learned that really mattered a damn.' He took a drag, tilted back his head and blew out smoke. 'Always apologise and do whatever it is she wants for you to do to make it up to her. Even if you ain't done nothing, even if you ain't sorry at all, you just say it like you mean it and you take what's coming to you. It may not be fair but neither are women. Don't let nobody fool you, son, they just ain't civilised like we are. You have a beef with a man, you can slug it out then go and get drunk and that's the end to it. Can't do that with a woman, they'll have your heart clear out of your chest soon as look at you. You all right?'

Boyd's head was bowed and his shoulders shook; when he looked up his face was bright and his eyes danced. 'You're a philosopher, Ronnie.'

The older man shifted in his chair. 'You can make fun all you want, but you know I'm right.'

'Maybe. And I'm not making fun of you, truly I am not. But it still isn't as simple as that. I wish it was.'

Ronnie shook his head, sucked his teeth. 'Stubborn, that's your trouble.'

'So's Ava.'

'Well then, son, I believe what you have here is what is known as a predicament.'

'Predicament...' Boyd repeated the word under his breath. 'I believe you're right.'

They sat and watched the rain come down.

  


ooOoo

  


Ava had decided that they would be civil to each other.

At least, she would be civil; Boyd could be whatever he liked.

She was up and showered by the time he returned to the cottage, her hair still wet and clinging to her neck. She had smiled and greeted him, civilly, and there had been a moment when the expression behind his eyes had been the one a man might wear when watching a rattler and worrying about whether or not it would strike; then came the relief and he was courteous. They walked to breakfast together, the persistent drizzle leaving a thin skin of damp on everything.

There would be no blasting that day - Boyd was none too keen on setting charges in the wet and no-one disagreed with him. There was plenty of other work to be done, not least starting to clear away the fire damage. Ava caught him up there, in the midst of the ruins and ash, and they wandered about it in silence. His eyes kept going back to the black scars drawn across the wood.

'It's a damn shame,' Ava said after a while. 'Ronnie told me his daddy put this barn up.' She dusted the soot from her fingers.

'They'll rebuild it,' he said.

'Yes. But that ain't the same.' She walked slowly, detritus crunching under her feet. 'Maybe they'll have a barn raising, like in that movie.'

' _Seven Brides for Seven Brothers_?'

Ava looked over her shoulder, a crooked smile. 'No, smartass, the other one. You know, with whatsisname - Indiana Jones.'

Boyd turned his face up to the sky. 'Mm. That was a good movie.'

' _Indiana Jones_?'

He lowered his head. 'Now who's being the smartass?'

Ava smiled. They smiled at each other, and for a moment it seemed as though everything else had receded. She turned to him fully, took a step, and when she was about to speak a call from the house stopped her. There was a car along the road, big and black with its official insignia clearly marked. Boyd was already watching it and when he started to move she followed.

They were all outside of the house when the car pulled up and when Lowell Buscombe got out he took a moment and took all of them in and there was a flash of teeth as he took a few steps forward and stopped, one hand pushing back the folds of his jacket to rest on his hip and show the gun he wore.

'Well now, this looks like a real warm welcome, with y'all stood out here.'

'Don't get used to it.' Hatred was written into Arlene's face so deep it cracked her bones. Ava recognised the look; she had worn it herself for long enough.

'What can we do for you, Lowell?' Ronnie, still patient, but with a tautness pushing at the edges of his voice.

'Doing my duty by you folks, is all. I hear you got company staying with you.' His dark eyes darted to Boyd, moved past him to Ava, stayed on her. 'Even more than I knew. Who's this?'

'What do you want, Lowell?' Arlene folded her arms across her chest, braced.

His gaze slid away from Ava and his lips pulled back from his teeth. 'Like I said, heard you had company - and this old boy here told me he was just passing through these parts.'

'He's doing some work for us.'

'That a fact? Well, ain't that real generous, you being strangers and all. But that's kind of the point: I figured maybe you'd want to know just what manner of man you've got staying here. You know Mister Crowder over here is not unknown to the law. Did two bits in prison.'

'I know,' Arlene said, impatient, 'he told me.'

Lowell's lips tightened and then the dark eyes gleamed, the dull glow of a dying ember. 'Did he tell you about the big old swastika he's got slapped on his arm?' A hiss of breath, sharp, heads that moved. The world shrank down, squeezing hard. He smiled, suddenly expansive. 'Oh yeah. What was it your boys called themselves? Crowder's Commandoes? You got yourselves a genuine patriot here, Arlene.'

Ava loosened the fingers curled at her sides, felt the pain where the nails had dug into the palms. She wanted to rake them across this man's face. She stared at Boyd instead. He lifted his chin slightly, stared back at the sheriff and there was nothing in his expression. She studied his profile, the firm curve of his jaw, the fine misting of rain caught in his hair.

'Looks to me like your new friend left out the best part of whatever it was he fed you. Didn't think you'd be so...' He frowned.

'Gullible,' Boyd offered, soft.

'What's that?'

'Gullible. It means easily deceived. Naïve.'

'That.' The interruption had thrown him; he viewed Boyd with a little uncertainty and a whole lot of resentment. He shook it off, turned his attention back to Arlene. She still held herself, still stood tall and straight but the set of her head was a little too high, the energy crackling along her spine tense and spiking. He had got what he wanted in that. Lowell showed his teeth again. 'Guess you folks got some talking to do. You should be careful about who you take in, Arlene. I'd be real sorry if anything happened to you. Or your boy here.'

For a long time after the car pulled away, no-one spoke and no-one moved. The rain had strengthened, wind behind it and Ava blinked against the sting. Then Arlene spoke, her voice wound tight.

'Is what he said true?'

Boyd turned to her, his chin still up and his voice quiet and even and steady. 'Yes, it is.'

Her face twisted. 'I don't put up with any of that shit. If you came here to stir up that kind of trouble you can pack up right now and get the hell out. Her too.'

'Ava never had anything to do with any of that,' Boyd said and there was an edge to his tone, a warning. 'You have no cause to lay any of that at her door.'

Lee was staring, looking between Boyd and his mother, and his eyes were wide and troubled and dark with confusion. Arlene swallowed hard, bile in her throat. 'You believe all that shit?'

There was a long pause.

'Boyd, for God's sake-'

'It's all right,' he said to Ava, glancing back at her. To Arlene he stood his ground, preparing for inspection. For confession. 'No, ma'am.'

Her lips were tight; she studied him, a long searching gaze that didn't seem to give her any answers and she frowned over this puzzle of a man. She shook her head. 'Why-'

'Maybe we should go indoors.' Ronnie, quiet. He started towards the front door, favouring one leg over the other and walking heavily. They all followed and the inside of the house felt dark and closed-off. In the kitchen Ronnie eased himself into one of the chairs, stared down at the table-top. Arlene leant against one of the counters and Boyd faced her, still with that remote expression of his.

'Well?'

'What do you want to know?'

'I want to know if I got some racist asshole under my roof.'

He took a breath. 'I can promise you that I have never done any man any harm because of his religion or the colour of his skin.'

Her head tilted, still puzzling him out. 'Then why?'

'I told you that I made a lot of mistakes. I have done a lot of things in my life, evil things. I said what people wanted to hear to get them to do what I wanted and for a long time it did not bother me to speak words I knew to be lies or to wear a symbol that stood for things I did not believe in.' He paused then a faint bitter smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'It isn't the worst thing I've ever done, not even the thing I am most ashamed of.' His gaze had moved to Ava, unconsciously, drawn to her in a way that he couldn't help. He looked away again.

She remembered the day he had come around with that mark on his arm, swaggering, showing it off, and Bowman, impressed, saying how he'd get one himself, but bigger, wouldn't be outdone by his brother. There had been a look behind Boyd's boasting, something sly and amused, a trickster delighted by the results of his own deceptions. He had seen Ava watching him and then something of that arrogant smile had slipped at the look on her face; something else behind his eyes then, something she would later see, so strong it seemed to consume him. Shame. But in between those times he would seem to taunt her with it, daring her to say something.

She had hated him for that, for what he had turned himself into.

And after that he had turned himself inside out, tearing away the things that had kept him down in that hole he had created for himself. Watching it had broken her heart and somehow trying to help him put himself back together had healed her, too.

He wasn't done and his tone was still the same. Steady. Honest.

'The fact that I did not believe those things doesn't make my crime any less; you could say that it makes it worse. Cynicism in the place of belief isn't an excuse and I exploited those who did believe. Suffice to say that my past is something that I carry with me and while I may wish that what has been could be otherwise, I do not deny the man that I have been.'

Arlene, lips parted, eyes narrowed a fraction, stayed with him a moment then turned to Ava. 'He always use ten words when one would do?'

A breath of laughter. 'As long as I've known him.' Her throat felt thick, pressure behind her eyes. 'He ain't lying. What he said, all of it, it's all true.'

Arlene caught a breath, blew it out, massaged the back of her neck.

'If there's anything else you want to know, I will gladly tell you,' Boyd said.

Lee, sitting beside his grandfather leant forward and he asked seriously, 'Did it hurt?'

'You are not getting a tattoo,' Arlene said automatically.

Lee rolled his eyes, sat back, arms folded. Ronnie smiled, glancing at the boy with affection. Arlene scrubbed at her eyes, her forehead, ran her hand over her hair and said, 'Okay,' more to herself than anyone else.

Boyd watched her and he took a moment. 'Seems to me like your sheriff isn't too keen on any outsiders out this way.'

'That's small towns for you,' Arlene said.

'I mean here specifically.' The words came slow, clear. 'Your farm. Why does he want you off your land?'

Her lips pressed together, a thin line holding back a torrent. 'I don't know.'

'It's the stuff that got dumped in the creek.' Weary, hardened, it didn't sound like Ronnie talking but they all looked at him.

'What stuff?'

'Some chemicals,' the big shoulders rose and fell, 'I don't know the names. It was in the water. Leastways, that's what we figured. No-one knew anything about it until the crops starting dying, couldn't figure it out. Had one of them people come out after a while, one of them envo- en-something...' He frowned.

'Environmentalists?' Ava asked, soft.

He smiled at her. 'That's the one. Don't know what happened exactly, but they were supposed to take some samples. Y'know, water and soil and stuff.'

'Except it was Lowell who took the guy up there and as everything passes through the Sheriff's Office, it didn't come as a real big surprise when we got told that the water and the land is all clear. Nothing wrong with it. Except that we still can't raise nothing worth a Goddamn thing on our fields anymore.' Arlene's words tumbled out and her eyes snapped, colour high in her cheeks. 'We're closest to the creek, see? Actually own some of the land up that way, not that we can do anything with it. Bobby, he was going to get some more samples.'

Boyd's head tilted, inquisitive. 'Bobby?'

'Bobby Deakins, the guy who does work for us. He lives upstate, used to be a miner 'til his leg got mashed up in a rockfall. Can't work down the mine no more but he does pretty good work for us, stays here a few months each year. He was heading back up home, said he'd stop by the creek, get some samples, get them to a proper lab and stuff.' She paused. 'We ain't heard from him, though.'

Boyd looked at Ronnie. 'You said you'd tried raising him.'

Ronnie nodded. 'We did, when we decided to start clearing the land on the other side of the farm, see if we could do any better that way. He ain't picking up.'

'When did he leave here?'

'Couple of weeks back. Then the barn got burned down, few days after Bobby left.'

The rain had stopped. There was a faint tinny _drip-drip-drip_ as water rolled off the edge of the roof.

'Why's Buscombe interested in all this?'

Arlene raised her hands, let them fall. 'I don't know. He wouldn't dare show his face round here all that much when Bill was alive, but since then he-' She cut herself off, glanced sharply at her son. Lee was staring at an indeterminate point on the floor. She moistened her lips. 'I don't want to spend all day on this; we got work to do.'

  


ooOoo

  


They had all worked at it, using the tractor to pull down the blackened uprights, then shovelling up the ash by hand. A messy job and a hard one and when the light started to fade and they stopped, Ava didn't think it looked all that much different than when they had started. The mess was tidier, that was all. But it was a beginning.

Her body ached, muscles heavy and dragging and her skin and hair and under her eyelids felt gritty from soot. She stood under the shower for a long time, the water turned on full and it pounded at her. When she stepped out she felt slightly scalded, but clean. She pulled the comb through her hair and watched Boyd's shadow play across the ceiling in the other room.

He was sitting on the sofa, head bent over a book and didn't look up when she padded across, sat in the chair close by.

'I feel so bad for them.'

'I know, baby.'

She smiled slightly, the word brushing her ears but she left it at that; unaware that he had even said it out loud, Boyd sighed and straightened, pulled off the glasses he sometimes wore for reading when his eyes were tired.

'You think the sheriff did something to that other guy? Bobby?'

'Maybe. I don't know.'

'I think he did,' she said firmly. 'I have a feeling.'

Boyd lowered his head, one corner of his mouth curling. 'Well, far be it from me to argue with your intuition, Ava.'

'You know I'm right, though.'

He was serious then. 'More than likely. If he did, he's not going to leave these folks alone.' His eyes on her face and his voice softening in a way it hadn't since she'd arrived: 'I don't like the thought of you being caught up in that.'

She shrugged. 'Well, I don't much like the thought of you being in it, either. So I guess that makes us even.'

A flicker. 'Ava-'

A knock on the door and the flicker hardened to impatience.

'Come in,' Ava called.

The door rattled open and Lee hovered, eyes darting between them and lowering. His neck flushed. 'Mama says to come on if you're coming. Dinner's ready.'

Boyd unfolded himself. 'We're coming. Ava?'

She stood up and forced a smile.

It was a short walk but the silence was more than Ava could take; when she spoke her voice sounded a little too loud, a little too bright.

'So, Lee, I hear you're real good with trucks.'

The thin shoulders shrugged and he darted her a look. 'I ain't bad.'

'Lee here is a modest man,' Boyd said, hands in his pockets and his eyes somewhere on the ground. 'He is a maestro of all things mechanical. I bet he'd be even better if he didn't skip school.'

Lee shot him a glare that was part reproach, part hurt betrayal. 'You sound like my mama. I already know what I want to do, school ain't gonna help me none there.'

'What do you want to do?' Ava asked.

'I'm gonna be a mechanic. For real, y'know, in a garage and stuff.' There was a note of pride in his voice.

Ava smiled to herself; boys' dreams always involved something either loud or messy, like being a cowboy or an astronaut or a mechanic. Or a rock star.

'You think of owning your own garage?'

Lee shrugged again, looking at Boyd a little more kindly. 'Dunno. Maybe.'

'Running a business like that, it ain't easy. It doesn't go so hard if you have qualifications, learn how to do it right at business school. Of course, you need to get your high school graduation first before they'll let you into business school. Ain't that right?'

Boyd looked at Ava.

'Uh... Yeah. Yeah, like my friend Carrie-Ann Sawyer, back in Harlan, she wanted to open up her own beauty salon, so she took herself to business school, got herself a degree and everything.' She didn't look at Boyd, could feel his eyes on her and the slight shaking across his shoulders. She talked to Lee and the boy's steps had slowed. 'And she's doing real good for herself, too. Thinking of maybe opening up another one, making it into a local chain.'

'And just think what will happen if that goes national,' Boyd said, quiet, a suspicious quiver in his voice.

'Huh.' Lee nodded slowly, frowning. 'That's, uh... Huh.' They had reached the backdoor. Lee pulled it open, went inside, still frowning.

Boyd leant against the railing running down the two steps up to the door. 'Carrie-Ann Sawyer? With a business plan?'

'Well, I could hardly tell him the truth, now, could I?'

Carrie-Ann had been kept by a well-off owner of a string of second-hand car dealerships for the best part of ten years; he had bought the salon for her to make sure she kept her mouth shut when his wife had started talking about divorce. The divorce had never happened, but Carrie-Ann had got her salon and an accountant and a business manager came down from Frankfort once a month to do all of the administration for her.

'One way of doing business, I guess,' Boyd said. His head tilted slightly. 'I remember Carrie-Ann in high school...'

'Everyone knew Carrie-Ann in high school,' Ava said, tight.

He smiled then a sudden flash of teeth. And then it faded and he pulled open the door. 'We'd best go in.'

Ava blew out a breath and walked past him into the kitchen.


	7. Gloomy Sunday

 

For two days they worked on dismantling the wreckage. Ava was almost glad of the distraction at times, the hard work keeping her mind off the farce of the situation. By night she was too tired to do much beyond shower and spend a few minutes in the little sitting room before going to bed. Alone. She only fell asleep, though, when the pages of his book stopped turning and he put the lamp off. 

When they weren't working, Boyd spent his time with Ronnie or Lee. For someone who had spent a lot of time making himself so obvious, being right where she didn't want him to be at the most inappropriate times, he had a real knack for avoiding her, even when they were sharing the one small three-roomed house. 

On the Sunday the family had got ready for church and when neither Ava nor Boyd had shown any signs of going Arlene had raised her eyebrows, more in surprise than judgement. 

'You ain't coming?' 

'You could say that my relationship with the Almighty is ... somewhat complicated.' 

Arlene pursed her lips, turning this over. 

'I think I'll stay here, too,' Ava said, hand still wrapped around her coffee mug. A few hours on their own, with no-one he could pretend he was busy with. Boyd stood up. 

'I guess, though, I should go on down with you - complicated or not.' 

Ava stared at him in disgust, pushed herself up from the table. They all went to church. 

It was a long service, the church full and all the bodies packed in there together sent the temperature up. Wedged between Lee and Boyd, Ava tried not to fidget, even when she felt a bead of sweat start a slow roll down her back. The preacher talked about loving thy neighbour - she wondered if he knew what the hell was going on out at Arlene's farm. 

Probably just about everyone in that hall would, she reckoned, and no-one would or could do a damn thing about it. She remembered what that was like. 

Boyd sat very still beside her, hands clasped together on his knees. The muscles along his jaw were bunched but he made the responses, his voice, scratchy, pitched so low that she could barely hear him. He never talked about it but it was still there, she knew that, wracking in him a pain so profound that at times it would colour the air around him. 

When the service was over and they were back outside the air felt clean, fresh and the sunshine was bright against the white-washed walls. A few people passed words with Arlene and she wore a tight smile in response, these loving neighbours who hadn't been anywhere in sight while Ava had been there and probably not for a long time before. 

And it would be nothing personal, nothing against Arlene or Ronnie. Maybe they would help if they could but more than likely they were afraid of the man with coal-dead eyes, the one standing on the far side of the stretch of lawn that ran from the church down to the road. He was staring over in their direction and Ava wondered if he realised just how much anger and loathing was written in his face. Boyd was beside her, also looking toward Lowell Buscombe, and Ava leaned into him slightly. He didn't pull away from her. 

'He looks real friendly, don't he?' 

Boyd made a noise in the back of his throat. 

'Who're the two with him?' 

'You mean Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber?' 

Ava smiled. 

'That would be Cody and Garrett Jenkins. Far as I can see they're the sheriff's unofficial thugs. Pretty, ain't they?' 

'Faces only a mother could love,' Ava agreed. 'But I bet they don't think so.' The older one stared over at her, openly, his face twisting into the sort of leer she was all-too familiar with. She glared back and then felt Boyd move beside her and the Jenkins boy's eyes dropped. Ava looked at Boyd sideways from under her lashes: his face had darkened and there was a faint smile at the corners of his mouth, something dangerous, feral. She touched his hand and he started. 

'I think we're leaving,' she said, jerking her head to where the others were standing, Ronnie leaning against the hood of his truck. Boyd's fingers had curled around hers and he kept hold of her hand for a moment longer before letting go. 

  


ooOoo 

  


It was a welcome day of rest, or it would have been if Ava had felt any peace. She felt as though her body was wired, energy twitching through her like a current. Her skin prickled, there was no way of sitting that was comfortable, she couldn't concentrate. She gave up on the magazine she had been reading, went outside. It was cooler, the rain having broken the heat. Fall would be settling in fast and the trees were starting to turn, copper and deep gold touching the green. 

She made her way towards the main house, found Ronnie on the porch, leaning back on the wide seat there, his eyes closed. He opened them when she started to creep past. 

'I wasn't asleep,' he said, shifting until he was more upright. 

Ava's eyes crinkled with amusement. 'I didn't think you were.' 

Ronnie grinned easily. 'There ain't nothing more sincere than a pretty woman telling a lie.' 

'Should I take that as a compliment?' 

'Well, it wasn't meant as no insult.' He took in a breath, blew out contentedly, fished in his pocket for his tobacco and papers. 'You mind?' 

'Go right ahead. But if I try begging one off you, just say no. I quite a while back and I'm trying to stick to it.' 

Concentrating on rolling up the paper her spared her a glance. 'I reckon you will stick to it - Boyd says you're stubborn.' 

A breath of laughter and her eyes widened. 'He's a fine one to talk.' 

'I already told him that he was,' Ronnie told her, reassuring. 

Ava leaned against the wooden railing. 'It's real nice of you to put us up here.' 

'The work you two have been putting in has more than paid for it.' He looked her up and down. 'Didn't think a little thing like you could turn your hand to it so much.' 

'I ain't that little.' 

He looked her over again. 'No... I guess not.' 

Ava laughed and Ronnie had the grace to look a little sheepish. 'Now, Ava, I don't mean nothing by it but you are a fine looking woman and I have a great appreciation for a comely female form.' 

'Well, I ain't offended,' she told him. 

He grinned at her again, blew out smoke. 'I like having the two of you here. I'll miss you when you head back on home.' 

That seemed an awful long way off, Ava thought, and God knows where else they'd end up before she'd get Boyd to go back home again. 'We ain't going anywhere yet.' 

'I know.' He sighed. 'Ignore me, I get sentimental. That's what happens with age.' 

'You ain't hardly old.' 

Ronnie squinted at her through the cigarette smoke. 'There you go being all sincere again.' 

And she laughed, again, stepped forward and dropped a kiss on his cheek, an impulsive gesture. 'I think I'll go see if Arlene needs a hand.' 

Ava found Arlene in the middle of a mound of potatoes and carrots and scrapings and at her offer Arlene took a moment and gave her charge of shelling the peas. 

'I always loved doing this,' Ava said, snapping off the top and tail of one pod, opening it and running a thumbnail up the spine. The peas pinged against the side of the bowl, their fresh scent rising. 'I think I used to eat as many as I shelled.' 

Arlene smiled slightly, nodded. 

'You don't get the men to help out?' 

'They make more mess than anything. And honestly, I kind of like this time to get away from them.' A pause. 'You seen Lee?' 

Ava picked up another pod, a small thin specimen. 'He's with Boyd, they've got their heads shoved under the hood of Boyd's truck.' 

'Lee's taken a real shine to him. I wasn't sure at first, but ... well, it seems good for him. Ain't heard Lee talking as much in a long while as he has of late. I'm glad for it.' 

Her hands were sure, deft, working with the skill of long practice and little thought. Ava watched her, the way the dark curls of her hair, loosened, fell around shoulders that were surprisingly delicate in their outline, shown off by the sleeveless dress. Maybe not a beautiful woman but a handsome one and strong, charismatic despite her prickliness. A challenge. 

'I guess that 's what he needs,' Ava said lightly, 'a father figure.' 

Arlene looked at her and then, unexpectedly, she laughed. It was a rich, warm sound, bouncing around the walls. 'Oh, honey...' She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. 'I already had a husband, I ain't looking for another.' Arlene set down the peeler, placed her elbows on the table and her dark eyes were sparkling. 'Don't get me wrong, Boyd seems real nice and he ain't half bad looking, but even if I was interested - and I'm not - I think his heart's too full of you to have any room left for anyone else.' 

Strange, the strength of relief that she felt, a wave of it. And gratitude. 'Well, he's got a funny way of showing it lately. He's been sleeping on the sofa.' 

'Oh...' Arlene selected another piece of vegetable, her movements slower. 'That must be ... frustrating.' 

'That's like saying the ocean is a bit wet.' 

Arlene laughed again. 

'He thinks he's being noble,' Ava said, attacking a pea-pod savagely. 'There was- Things happened. He thinks it's his fault and I can't seem to get through to him that it wasn't. But he's on this path of... I don't know what, to be honest, and it's going to take a lot to shake him back off it.' 

'Men...' Arlene shook her head. 'Don't know what's good for them unless you tell them. And then they think it was their idea. Of course, the trick is to tell them so as they don't know they've been told so as they _will_ think it's their idea.' 

'Oh, so that's where I've been going wrong.' 

They exchanged smiles. 

'This is nice,' Arlene said after a moment. 'It's been a long time since I've had a girlfriend.' 

Ava nodded. 'I noticed your neighbours don't exactly come around all that much.' 

'Can't really blame them. They have troubles enough of their own, can't risk adding to them.' 

'Because of Buscombe.' 

Her lips tightened again, her eyes regaining the hard, wearied look that Ava had come to associate with her. 

'Lowell... He's been bad news his whole life.' 

Ava slipped a few of the fresh peas into her mouth, hard and sweet and chalky. 'He seems really interested in you.' 

'He's been sniffing around me as long as I can remember. Didn't have much excuse to come up here when Bill was alive but since then...' 

Ava frowned, looked at her uneasily. 'You don't think he- I mean, could he have killed...' 

'What- No.' Arlene shook her head, pressed her lips together. 'Bill had cancer, passed last year. Lowell might be just about every name you can think of but I don't think even he could be responsible for that.' 

Silence for a while. 

'Were you married long?' 

'Going on twenty years.' 

Ava turned the corners of her mouth up. 'High-school sweethearts?' 

'Actually, no. My high-school sweetheart... Well, he turned out to be a real jerk. Found out just in time; I mean, I would've married him if he'd have asked.' Arlene stood, carried the bowl of peeled potatoes over to the sink, turned on the tap. 'We got into a fight one night, not anything important, and he knocked me down. You believe that? Ain't no way I was going to stand for that.' 

Ava stared at her hands, tossed the hair away from her shoulders. 

'Then Bill Lefferts asked me to marry him and I thought I might as well.' She came back to the table, sat down. 'I mean, I liked him and all and it meant my own place and...' Her face worked, voice thickening. 'God, but I miss him. Funny, the people you end up loving. And I loved that man with my whole heart.' 

Ava nodded. 'Yes.' Soft. 

Arlene blinked hard, set about the carrots. 'You ever been married, Ava?' 

'Yes.' 

'Divorced?' 

She braced herself. 'No.' 

'Oh...' Arlene nodded, her features softening, a sympathetic understanding and Ava couldn't take it. She lifted her chin. 

'I shot my husband.' 

Arlene's mouth hung open, her face clouded and then her cheeks reddened. 'Shit. Oh, Jesus, Ava, I'm sorry-' 

'It's okay. I took it. For a long time. I did.' 

'Until you didn't. Well, good for you. And then you met Boyd?' 

She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at Arlene levelly. 'It was Boyd's brother I was married to.' 

More silence, and then Arlene started laughing again. 'I'm... I'm sorry. Really. It's just-' She covered her mouth with her hand, pushed down the laughter but her voice still shook. 'I was just thinking, I should change the name of the farm to Peyton Place.' 

Ava threw a handful of peas at her, and then they both laughed. 

  


ooOoo 

  


The thing that kept coming back to her was the creek. Like everyone else in Harlan, Ava had seen the destruction wrought by the mining companies. Mags Bennett had been right about that, the spoil, even if she had been willing to sell out everyone in Bennett and Harlan and beyond for her own profit. 

Boyd had always hated it, she knew that. Bowman didn't care, as long as blowing the top off a mountain made his job a little easier, which it didn't, truth be told, but details like that had never bothered Bowman. But Boyd loved the mountains and the creeks and the hollers and that was something that none of the other nonsense he had got himself involved with could ever change. 

He had spent most of the previous night studying a map he had got Ronnie to dig out, the old deeds to the farm showing the boundaries. Ava had sat, sewing buttons back onto a shirt; he had glanced up, told her she needn't, she shouldn't, and she had shrugged and kept on at it and in the end he had looked down again and she had studied him. She wondered what he would do if she just stood up, walked over and kissed him. She thought about it for a long time, then folded up her sewing and took herself to bed. 

It was after lunch, the middling hours of the afternoon when the sun was lazy and slanted low. Lee was on the porch, stripping down some part of an engine or other, cleaning it with an oily rag. Boyd was somewhere with Ronnie. Nearby - she could hear their voices floating. 

'Lee?' 

He looked up at her, solemn and pink spots tinged his cheeks. One day he'd be a good-looking young man, she thought. 

'Your mama said you folks own land up around the creek.' 

He nodded, forehead creasing. 'That's right.' 

'You- Could you take me up there?' 

He blinked at her. 'Why?' 

'I...' It was a good question, and she didn't really have an answer for it. A feeling. Intuition. And if Boyd wouldn't argue with it, neither would she. 'Honestly, I don't rightly know. Just like to see what all the fuss is about. You show me how to get there?' 

Long limbs unfolded, rising like a spring; he wiped his hands on his jeans. 'Sure! I mean... Yeah. No problem.' 

Aba bit back a smile. 'Thanks.' 

It was the best part of an hour, taking the road that led away from the farm, climbing towards the hills and then turning back down towards the creek. Long twisting roads with sudden turns. Lee directed her surely, not talking much. 

'How're you coming along with your book?' 

'It's good,' he said, fast. He glanced at her. 'It's kinda hard going, though.' 

Ava laughed. 'It is, but it's worth it in the end.' 

'You read a lot?' 

'Some. Not like Boyd does.' 

'Oh...' He frowned, staring at her. 

'We like different things. I like books that ... I dunno, make me forget about real life for a little while. Boyd likes the kind that makes him think more.' 

'He must think a lot,' Lee muttered. 

Ava choked slightly, kept her hands tight on the wheel and steered around a tight bend. 'You're not wrong.' 

There was nothing remarkable about the creek. It was pretty, the way those places were always pretty. Quiet, overgrown. When she closed the door of her jeep the sound reverberated, birds squawking irritably in response. Further down the holler she could make out the farm. Ava plunged her hands into her pockets, looked around. It was overgrown, true, but there were still tracks, places where the grass hadn't had time to grow back fully. She started along one of the paths, keeping her eyes on the faded marks. Tyre-tracks, maybe. The place was wide enough for a car, for a truck even. 

'Where're you going?' 

Lee ambled behind her. She heard him swear under his breath. 

The shadows grew longer, pressing in, the slow slide into the purple-grey of evening already starting and Ava had to admit that she hadn't a clue what she was doing. She should turn back. She'd had no right to drag the boy up here and Arlene would be frantic; Ava grimaced, not wanting to break the fragile friendship she'd established with the woman. 

Just a little further, though. They'd go a little further, then turn back. 

The ground was churned up. It had softened under the rain but the heat of preceding weeks had baked it too hard for the soft drizzle to make much of a difference. She turned off the track, deeper into the undergrowth, a little farther down the bank. There was a strange smell on the air, something rank, sickeningly sweet. Rotten. Rotting. It caught in the back of her throat and her stomach roiled. 

Lee was slipping behind her, cursing out loud and not caring if she heard it or not. She didn't much care. The smell was worse and there was a droning in her ears. No, not in her ears, it was on the air. Flies buzzing, lots of them. She pushed aside the branches of fern hanging across the path and saw the boot sticking out. The fabric above it covering the leg was damp, something oozing through. The stench was overpowering. She moved back, fast, slipped, her feet sliding from under her and she sat down on the path, her body crushing against the green fronds and pushing them out of the way. They both saw what had been a face, so white and bloated and glistening. 

'Oh, Jesus.' Lee's voice, high and keening. 'Fuck-' 

She heard him throw up, retching helplessly. Ava scrambled around, pushing herself up; she grabbed hold of Lee, dragging both of them back up towards the fresh air. 

  


ooOoo 

  


When Ronnie came up from the bank he was walking heavily, Boyd beside him. His face was lined, old. One hand shook. 'It's him,' he said. 'It's Bobby. Oh my God.' 

Boyd grabbed his arm and Ava was on the other side, her arm around Ronnie, holding him up. Between them they got him back to where he had parked his truck and he planted both hands on the hood, head bowed. Ava rubbed the middle of his back, slow circles. She looked over at Arlene, apologetic. Arlene had her arm around Lee, her hand resting on the back of the boy's neck. 

'It weren't no accident, was it?' she said. 

'No. He was shot.' Boyd, tight and contained. He stood apart from them, watching the faces. Ronnie muttered something and Arlene crossed to him, Lee trailing after her, stopping a few paces off and watching his grandfather with eyes that suddenly looked too shadowed in his young face. He looked away from Lee and found Ava. She brushed hair away from her face and there was a tremor in her hand. Boyd took a step towards her. 'You okay?' Soft. 

She bit down on the inside of her lip, nodded, and there was a mute appeal in her face. He pulled her to him, arms holding her fast and he felt the breath shake through her back. Her hair still smelt the same, warm, flowers after a summer shower and for a moment he brushed his lips against the top of her bowed head. She had one hand flat against his chest, turned her face into the curve of his shoulder. There was this. For a little while, for a few borrowed seconds, this was all there was in the world. And then he heard Arlene say, 

'We should call the police.' 

'Wait. Just wait.' Ava no longer in his embrace and every part of his body that had been touching hers screamed at the loss. 'Just how do you think that will go?' 

Arlene stared at him, her chest rising and falling, teeth glistening between parted lips, an animal ready to strike at anything that came near. He held up his hands, placating. 

'Most likely your friend Bobby was killed by Buscombe, or at the very least Buscombe had him killed. Your worker, dumped on your land. Did he have a gun?' 

'He had a rifle.' Lee, a little unsteady but holding firm. 

'And five will get you ten that that's what was used to kill him. ' 

They were arranged in a rough semi-circle in the clearing above the creek, shadows pooling all around. Ronnie had turned around, his face still chalky and lined and his hair was damp with sweat. And they all watched Boyd. He didn't enjoy it particularly. Plenty of times he had put on his show and he had enjoyed it, relished it, sometimes he had believed, truly, in what he had said and other times - most times - not. But this was different. Now he had something to say and it needed to be said but he didn't really want to be the one to say it, the one to receive the blank dark looks and the fear and the trust. They trusted him. He wished they didn't. 

'Bobby's truck ain't here, neither's his gun. Buscombe is not so stupid that he'd kill someone with a weapon that could be traced back to him. Now, that truck will be long gone, along with that rifle and without those there is nothing to tie Buscombe or his two friends to this. It will be your word, and even though that will be the truth, without evidence all that the state police will do is pull out. And then where will you be? Buscombe will know that you know, know it for certain. And maybe the fact that officials higher than himself are looking into this will stay his hand, but I would not count on that.' 

Arlene was silent, then her chin lifted. 'Sounds you know a lot about this sort of thing.' 

Boyd smiled slightly. 'I surely do, one way or another. But I have a ... friend ... who is with the Marshal Service and while he probably would not advise you to go along with me, he could not deny the truth of what I have said.' 

'And just what is it that you're suggesting?' 

'I- Truth be told, ma'am, I haven't got that far. Yet.' He paused. 'They've cleaned it up but there's still tracks further along and a whole mess of trees that will never grow again. The only way that an operation like that can occur is if the local authorities are in the pocket of the big company and from what we've seen here, I'd say that Buscombe is about as far in as a man can get. That chemical company would have needed his help to keep the dump a secret and they'd have paid him a handsome wage for that. He couldn't afford for anyone to find out. You said that Bobby was onto getting some more samples for you?' 

Arlene nodded. 

'If Buscombe found out, caught him at it...' He let it hang. It was like a kind of slow torture; maybe there were people who deserved that sort of thing - no, he _knew_ that there were - but these people were not them. 'All those chemicals dumped in the creek, contaminating the water, seeping down into your land. Maybe one day the earth can heal itself, I don't know, but one way or another Buscombe has done you out of your livelihood and you have done under the law all that you can do. If he knows what you've found up here, there isn't a play left to you.' 

Her breath was coming hard, her face working. 'Ain't just the crops, though... It gets people, too, don't it? Cancer and all that shit. And he brought it here; he brought it-' Arlene turned to Ava, her eyes black. 'You were right. That son of a bitch killed my husband. He- He-' 

She flung her arms across her face. Not a woman who cried easily, not one accustomed to it. The sobs tore at her, wrenching at her body, a pain that had burned deep finally finding its way to the surface. 

It was Lee who went to her. He put his arms around her, one hand stroking her hair clumsily. 'It's all right, Mama,' he said. 'It's all right. It'll be okay.' 

Boyd felt Ava's fingers touch his, like they had at the church that morning and just like that morning he curled his around them - fine, delicate - and they hung onto each other. 


	8. Truce

 

Hours later the smell was still on her skin, in her hair. Even after a shower so hot her skin had turned pink and she had been light-headed from the heat, she could still catch it. Ava could still see the travesty of a man's face and tried hard not to think about decay and a body rotting underground with half of his head blown away. 

She dried her hair, scrunching it in her hands until it fell into its natural waves, and pinned it up. Her blue dress was a little crumpled but she smoothed it out with her fingers, put it on. She skirted the edge of the house, headed for her jeep and when she closed the door a hand landed on the frame of the open window. 

'Where are you going?' 

She glared at Boyd, heart hammering a little harder than usual. He seemed to have emerged from shadow, that noiseless tread of his. 'I'm going into town. After today... I need to get off this farm for a little bit.' 

He frowned. 'Where in town?' 

She sighed. 'I don't know, but I'm guessing they have a bar and with a bit of luck it'll have things like beer and music.' 

Boyd took in a breath. His face was lined with worry, more than could just be smoothed away. Ava kept her grip on the steering wheel. 

'Okay.' He nodded. 'I'll come with you. Move over.' 

'Uh-uh.' 

'Ava-' 

'No! You are more than welcome to come along but this is my truck and I'm driving it.' They stared at each other; his jaw tightened. 

'Fine.' 

He circled the front of the jeep, got in beside her. 

It was a silent drive. Ava flicked on the radio and music spilled into the heaviness between them; too many twangy guitars and the singer's voice sobbed through a sickeningly sentimental number but she couldn't be bothered to find another station. The next number was better: sparse, a driving beat than matched her mood. 

The bar, in the end, was easy to find: neon lights garish against the brickwork and a few pick-ups parked out front. She slid the jeep into a space, got out and went in and didn't look around to see Boyd following her. He would do that anyway. 

There were few people in there: a handful of men, a couple of women, blowsy, and tinny music on the jukebox. Lights shaped like chilli-peppers were strung across the bar; she had a sudden vision of the patron or patroness seeing them in a magazine and deciding that these would add just the right touch of sophistication to the premises. She thought it was sweet. 

Boyd was close behind her and she could feel his eyes raking the room; some of the men looked over at them and most of them looked away again almost immediately. She kept her chin high and half-turned back towards him and said, 'I could stand a beer.' 

He peeled his gaze from the rest of room, brought it to rest on her and then he actually smiled, sort of, a pull at his mouth and a glimmer of teeth. 

'Whatever you want.' 

This was not  _whatever_ , she thought, not by a long shot. They both went to the bar and the keeper - short and wiry, grizzled hair streaked with grey - looked them over, nodded, went to fetch the drinks.

She glanced across the room. 'Pool table's free.' 

'So it is.' 

Her head tilted. 'I seem to remember you used to play a pretty good game.' 

He raised his eyebrows at her. 'Used to?' 

'Well, it has been a while, you might be out of practice for all I know.' Their beers were delivered, cold but already sweating in the humidity. Ava took a pull, held the cold bottle against the side of her neck. 'So, are we playing?' 

He hadn't taken a drink, just held it between his hands; head slightly bowed he looked up at her and there was a twitch at his mouth. 'Looks like.' 

'You want to make it interesting?' 

He leaned back then, elbows resting on the edge of the bar. 'What are we playing for?' 

'Let's just see how it goes, and then I'll tell you.' 

She heard him laugh softly behind her. 

'Y'know, I don't think that's how it's supposed to go.' 

Ava turned around, walking backwards. 'You think you can take me? At pool, that is.' 

'Well now, I didn't think that you meant anything else.' 

'That right?' 

She had stopped at the edge of the table, near the rack of cues; he had to squeeze past her to get to them and for a moment his face was close to hers and they were pressed together and the air snapped and she felt the layer of sweat rise on her skin. 

He turned away from her, pulled down two cues, handed one to her. 

'Thanks,' she murmured. 

They used the table to circle each other, Boyd always opposite her when she bent to take a shot. She smiled to herself at that, bent a little lower than she really needed, the front of her dress falling forward more. 

She wasn't above dirty tricks, standing close when it was his turn; when he closed in on the eight ball, lining up the cue to sink it she was perched near him, blew gently on his neck just as he took the shot. The ball skittered, striking against the side, rolling gently until it came to a stop. Boyd straightened, looked at her. 

'What?' 

She beat him, in the end, but only just. 

'Best of three?' she offered. 

'That is wholly dependent on whether or not you are planning on cheating your way through them, Ava.' 

She put her hand on her hip, her eyebrows up. 'Cheating? When have I ever?' 

It was amusement in his face, in the curl of his lip; he put his hands in his pockets, leaned back against the table. 'Do you want me to give you a few examples? And they would be fairly recent ones.' 

'Well, I'd like to seem some evidence, 'cos I'd like to see you try and prove it.' 

His head tilted slightly, the smile he was trying to suppress catching the corners of his mouth. 

'You want another beer?' 

'I'm good, thanks.' 

'Well, I'm going to get one. You can drive us home.' 

Away a few steps and his voice came: 'You still ain't told me what we're playing for yet.' 

She looked back at him, over her shoulder and enjoying the way his gaze was following her. 'You just hold that thought, Boyd Crowder.' 

The barman was down the other end, passing time with another customer and Ava was content - relatively - to wait. He was watching her and she knew it, she was all right with that, she wanted him to. Another body slid into the space beside her and she pulled back, looked up and saw a face that was vaguely familiar. 

Tweedledumb, she thought. Dumber was the younger one, the one, she noticed when her eyes darted away from the smug face in front of her, in the booth a few paces away. 

'Hey, sugar.' 

She stared at him. She was used to being hit on, used to putting it down but it had been a while since there had been anyone this obviously crass, arrogant. He looked her over. 

'Ain't you a picture.' 

'Picture of impatience.' 

His face clouded. 

'Impatient to get back to my game. Excuse me.' 

'Hey, now, just a minute.' 

His hand was around her arm, a hard grasp that stopped her, the grip something she could feel down to the bone and called up all the things she thought that she had left behind, the adrenaline rush of fear and anger, the desire to claw out his eyes and the need to do anything for self-preservation. 

'I'm trying to be friendly here, ain't no need to be that way.' His fingers closed tighter. 'You looking for a drink?' 

'I get my own drinks. And you get your hands off me.' 

He laughed. 'Firecracker, huh? I like that.' 

'She told you to let her go and it's best that you be minding her.' Boyd's voice came low, reasonable and she felt her stomach flip - relief and apprehension at what would follow next. 

'What's it to you?' The chin, big and square, was thrust out, eyes narrowing. 

'All your swagger might work with the little girls you are probably accustomed to, but she is a woman and a lady and unless you unhand her we are going to have ourselves a real big problem. Now, Goddamnit.' 

Her arm was released and he pushed her away, enough that she stumbled slightly, righted herself against a barstool. She glanced at Boyd, saw the look on his face and braced herself. 

Tweedledumb - Cody? she thought, or something like that - took a step forward, chest out; his brother was still at the table, body poised, ready. 

'I told you I wasn't through with you, asshole.' 

'And here we are,' Boyd said, with that calm that was always so deceptive. 'Is this something you've been giving a lot of thought to?' 

He grinned. 'Yeah.' 

Boyd's expression changed, a fractional movement, one of apparent pity that was wholly faked. He seemed almost relaxed, unconcerned; but his hands had balled at his sides. He turned and addressed the younger brother. 'You share that dream, son, or have you been working on thinking for yourself?' The slack, witless face creased. 'Maybe we'll just let that one lie. So,' he looked back at the older, 'how is this to go now? You boys planning on jumping me, the two of you?' His eyes slid towards Garrett, still at the table. 'Or maybe just the one of you, he don't look like his heart's quite in it.' 

'Hey!' It had taken a moment, but now he looked indignant, lumbered up from the table. 

Cody had lost the threads of the conversation, lost his patience: 'Shit, just get him!' 

It happened fast, a punch that was thrown, one that anyone could see coming, and Boyd ducked it, then his head came up fast, forward, and Cody's head snapped back, blood flowering across his face. 

'Shit!' 

Tables overturned, chairs sent tumbling. Ava could see Boyd's face, the wide wild grin, the fever in his eyes. He held his ground, fists fast and hard but it was still two against one and these were hardened brawlers. No-one else joined in but none of them tried to help, either; they stood, got out of the way, watched, too afraid, probably, to go against the two thugs and the power behind them who could break everyone here. She thought about the shotgun, Helen's gun, that she had hidden under the backseat of her jeep but by the time she had run and got it they could have beaten him to death. 

It was ferocious and vicious and it all turned fast and then Boyd had Cody pinned against the pool table, a broken bottle in his hand, held high. Garrett danced at the edges, about to advance. 

'I wouldn't do that, my friend, unless you want to see your brother's blood spilt across this table.' 

'That's enough!' 

The barkeeper, rifle in his hands. He had come round from the bar, stood in front of it, the gun not trained on anyone in particular. 

'I can't let you kill that little shit, even if he do deserve it. You hear me?' 

'I hear you,' Boyd said. Slowly, he loosened his fingers from Cody's collar, started to back away. But he kept his eyes on the other man, and the bottle with its jagged, lethal, shards was still in his hand. 

'Think it's time all you boys went home. Separately.' The barkeep jerked his chin at Boyd. 'You first, and your girl. I'll keep an eye on these two.' 

'I appreciate that. But I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble.' 

A shrug, the gun still held firm. 'Ain't like I haven't had to break up some shit with these two 'fore today. Best you get yourselves gone.' 

Boyd got his hand under Ava's elbow and she followed him, unresisting. 

'I'm sorry,' she said when they were back in the jeep and Boyd's hands were on the wheel. He paused and turned and looked at her. 'For what?' 

'I...' Her fingers twisted together and she shrugged helplessly. 

There was a moment's silence. 

'You haven't done anything to be sorry for, Ava. You put any such thoughts right out of your head. Hey.' He put one hand on her shoulder, a light, brief touch and she looked up at him and smiled and nodded. 

The main house was all in darkness when they got back, even the porch light turned off. They picked their way across the uneven ground to the cottage and its walls felt welcoming when they got there. Across the threshold and Ava paused, looked back at Boyd. He met the gaze, it held for a moment and then dropped and he crossed to the sofa. Ava took in a deep breath, went into the bedroom. 

She stepped out of her shoes, took her hair down, shook it loose. It had become a habit, following the play of his shadow across the ceiling, tracking him by that and soft noises: the sound of his work boots pulled off, placed on the floor beside the sofa; the even softer rustle of fabric, his shirt sliding off. A pull, a twitch deep under her skin. She padded across the floor, silent, stood in the doorway and watched him. His back was to her, lamplight a soft glow across the sheen of his skin, the muscles sliding smoothly beneath. Her gaze followed the long line from his waist up to the breadth of his shoulders, the way that unruly hair lay neatly against the back of his neck. She hadn't moved, hadn't made a sound, but Boyd turned suddenly and looked at her. 

'You should get some sleep,' he said after a beat. 

Ava pushed herself away from the door-frame. 'I'm not tired.' She walked slowly, arms loose at her sides and she was conscious of how her body swayed; he could get away from her if he wanted to but he stayed where he was, bare feet planted firm, watched her, his eyes holding on her face, looking at her properly for the first time since she'd got there. Ava stopped, so close to him she could feel the heat rising from his body. She placed one hand fully over the tattoo on his arm, her thumb moving back and forth across one thick black line. 

'I read somewhere that in some places that's a sign of good luck, a blessing. It's thousands of years old. I meant to tell you.' Her eyes moved from where her hand lay up to his and she smiled slightly, rueful. 'You probably knew that already.' 

'I did know that.' 

His breathing was shallow, fast, vibrating in the hollow at the base of his throat. She slid her hand up his arm, across his shoulder, resting it at the back of his neck. She raised herself up on her toes, slowly bringing her head closer to his until she brushed her lips against his mouth. His breath on her lips. A moment before his lips parted, his tongue delicate against hers. The tight coil of desire in her unspooled, threading right through, stitching her to him. She remembered this, the taste of him, the way the flat planes of his chest always felt so hard and unyielding against her breasts. He raised one hand, fingertips light against her cheek and she wound her arm around his waist. 

'Ava-' 

He took her by the shoulders, pushed her away with more force than he had probably meant to use. She could feel his fingers digging into her skin. Head bowed, he kept his eyes closed. His shoulders shook. Ava took a step back, enough room for her to pull apart the poppers that fastened the front of her dress. She pulled it open, pushed the straps down and let it fall, pooling at her feet. 

'Look at me. Look at me!' 

His eyes raised, glittered. She rested her fingers against the scar in her shoulder. 'See? It ain't that bad. You can hardly see it at all, even now. It's not as bad as this.' She moved her hand to his chest, to the scar left by Raylan's bullet, moved across to the one left from that morning out in Bulletville when he had come for her and she had never been so glad to see anyone in her whole life. She circled it with her finger, the nail scraping lightly against his skin. 'Remember the night you came to my door? Wanting to apologise? I sent you away but the thing is I kind of assumed that you'd be back, sooner or later. And I don't think I really minded that at all.' She spoke soft, casual, something she was barely thinking about, too busy with the feel of his skin under her fingertip, with the way the light played across the rapid rise and fall of his chest. She lowered her head, pressing her lips against the scar, sucking the skin into her mouth. When the tip of her tongue traced the contours his hand twisted deep into her hair, pulled her head back. 

She saw the wildness in his face, felt a surge of triumph and then he kissed her with a force that bruised her lips. She kissed him back, hard, arms tight around his neck. Need so great that her legs felt limp with it, as useless as a ragdoll's. He broke from her, scooped her up, carried her to the bedroom. She rained kisses, fierce, on his face, along the line of his jaw. 

The bed dipped under their weight. Boyd cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheeks; she pulled at the buttons and fly on his jeans, pushing them away. When she lay back she pulled him with her; his thigh slid between hers and she gasped with relief, pressing herself against that warm weight and needing more. 

She ran her hands over him, along the arms with their thick cording of muscle, across his shoulders, his back, down his chest and stomach. These were the textures she remembered, the feel of him under her hands that she wanted, that she loved. 

His fingers danced over her, tracing patterns along her thigh, teasing the skin above the lace edge of her bra. He moved her, rolling her, undid the clasp at the back, pressed his lips where it had lain. Ava pulled the straps down, pulled it away; he was following the line of her spine with his lips, one hand sliding across her back, over her ribs, up to cup her breast. She arched her back into that touch, his fingers kneading. She twisted around, reaching back to catch his head, pulled to it hers and she kissed him, deep. 

She rolled onto her back. Her underwear was dragged down her legs, slow, the torture exquisite, endless, until she wanted scream with it. He wrapped one hand around her ankle, kissed the hollows, started to work his way up the long curve of her leg. 

His hands were calloused, the work-roughened skin catching against hers, and warm and heavy on her thighs when he parted them, his thumbs pushing upwards. She gasped, hands fisting into the sheets when his tongue flicked against her. Her neck arched, head burying deep into the pillow. The tiny sparks he had ignited across her skin flared, linked together, coalescing in a rush of heat. She loosened her grip on the sheets, twined her fingers into his silk-rough hair, nails grazing his scalp. Her heartbeat matched the rhythm he had set, a mounting pressure that broke when his fingers slipped inside her and she tightened around them, cried out. 

Her breath was still hitching in her chest when he crawled up her, his mouth still drinking in her body. She cradled his face between her hands, tasted the muskiness on his lips, then sweat, salty and sweet, when she dragged her teeth across the pulse in his throat. 

His hands, palms down, lay flat either side of her head, fingers barely touching the spread of her hair. She pushed herself up to him, ran her hands along his arms and felt the tremor run through them. She kept one hand at the back of his neck, felt the hard muscle bunching, ran the other down his chest, down his stomach, down until her fingers closed around the thick shaft, her thumb rubbing across the tip and she felt his chest shake against hers. 

When he entered her, filling her, her eyes drifted closed and she buried her face, her teeth, in the curve of his neck. This was peace; this was home; this was the core of happiness that ran through her, spilling over. He was talking to her, incoherent, his voice rough with need and want; he stroked her hair and she heard him say her name and she pressed up against him, rocking her hips, matching the rhythmic motion that pounded through her. Bodies slid together, skin slick and she wrapped her legs around him, muscles locking, taking him deeper. 

Her hands pressed hard into his back, nails sinking into the flesh and her eyes, wide and dark, watched him, watched the play of emotion across his face, the devotion that flowed into her as much as that relentless, driving need. 

'Come with me, baby,' she murmured, 'come with me.' 

He shuddered over her, face buried in the curve of her shoulder; desire broke, waves of it, overpowering. She clung to him, starbursts behind her eyes, and felt his chest thundering against hers. 

His full weight on her, collapsed, and she held him to her, cradling his head against her breasts. Only when their breathing had slowed did Boyd raise his head. He kissed her, soft; he didn't say anything but for a long time he looked down at her, one hand stroking her hair. 


	9. Whirlwind

 

The attack came in the early hours, the dark dead hours.

The screech of truck tyres didn't wake anyone but the explosion of gunfire did, shots in the air, gold and orange streaking the sky. Breaking glass, and whoops rising over the roar of the engine.

Boyd had heard enough gunshots in his life, but there were still a few seconds of confusion; he grabbed at Ava automatically, pulling her to the floor with him in a tangle of sheets and limbs. But for those seconds the explosion was the tonnes of rock above their heads crashing down the shaft; it was Kuwait; it was his daddy and Johnny's, drunk on a hunting trip and taking pot-shots at shadows.

It was Ava breathing hard against him; her body was curled, shaking.

'Stay here,' he told her.

Keeping low he crossed to the other room and the sofa and fumbled for the handgun that was under the cushions. Using the muzzle he pushed back the curtain.

Lights had come on in the main house and the truck was still tearing a strip up and down in front of it, swinging erratically. Rock music blared and shots were let off. He felt a movement behind him, tensed as Ava crouched, her hand on his shoulder.

'I thought I told you to stay put.'

'Ain't us they're shooting at.'

'They probably mean to. Well, me at any rate.'

'Quit that. I don't figure they need much of an excuse.' Her hair brushed against his skin, her breath warm against the side of his neck. Despite the shots and the yells and the fire in the night he was too aware of her and wished that she'd stop touching him and and talking to him.

'I got the sawed-off in the jeep,' she said.

He pressed his lips together, looked at her where she was kneeling just behind and to the side of him, her hand still on his shoulder. Her face was set, determined, her limbs folded but taut and sleek and ready. A lioness. Her eyes were calm when they met his. 'You going for it?'

'I thought I might.'

'Give me the Glock, I'll keep you covered.'

She held out a hand. He couldn't help himself: he cupped the back of her neck, kissed her, fierce, then placed the gun in her hand. 'You stay down low.'

Ava rolled her eyes. 'I know.'

He had parked the jeep up close to the cottage, only a moment to creep down to it, pull open the door, locate the shotgun under the seat.

The front door of the main house opened, a figure framed in the light, also with a gun raised. Boyd stood, took aim at the truck and rounds from his shotgun and the one from the house sounded out. He walked forward, firing again and from behind him he heard the Glock discharge, a tearing, booming sound.

Two figures up on the porch, both with guns. More shots.

The truck swung wildly, the back-wheels skidding; it raced towards the mouth of the driveway and the road beyond and as it passed he saw Cody Jenkins' face, all twisted and wild.

He glanced back at Ava and she was behind him and they both ran to the house. Arlene and Ronnie on the porch, Ronnie leaning heavily on his shotgun.

'You all right?'

Arlene nodded. 'We're all right. Jesus Christ, what the hell...'

'I think the fault may be mine. Those two were hassling Ava earlier this evening - I took exception to that.'

'That so.' Dry. Arlene pushed the thick curls away from her face. 'Sounds like _they_ took exception to _that_.'

Boyd shook his head. 'I'm awful sorry, Arlene.'

She sighed. 'Don't look like there's much damage - a window, maybe a few plant pots. I don't think those two can piss straight, much less shoot straight.'

There was a choking sound; Lee stared at his mother, face quivering, eyes shining and disbelieving. She gave him a hard stare and his eyes dropped but she looked a little shame-faced. 'You think they'll be back tonight?'

Boyd took a moment. 'I doubt it. I think they've done what they meant to do.'

'Then I'm going back to bed,' Arlene announced. She stretched out her shoulders, shook herself and her eyes slid from Boyd to Ava and back and there was a fleeting expression, something inquisitive and knowing and Boyd wondered just how much Ava had told her. There was a pull at one corner of Arlene's mouth. She turned away, put her hand on her father-in-law's shoulder.

'Ronnie?'

He blinked at her, slow, and smiled, patted her hand. 'Think I'll get me some milk.'

She put her eyebrows up. 'Milk?'

'Daresay I'll put a shot of bourbon in it. Y'know - for medicinal purposes.'

'In that case you can fix me some, too.'

Ronnie, still all easy amiability despite the gun in his hand, smiled over at Boyd and Ava. 'Y'all want any?'

Boyd shook his head; Ava, her arms folded across her chest, holding her thin robe closed tight smiled and said, 'I'm good, thanks, Ronnie. Good night.'

They went back to the cottage, Boyd locking the door, taking a few moments to pull back the curtains, stare out into the dark beyond the house. Still, silent. Ava was standing behind him and when he turned she looked pointedly at the couch and said, 'Don't you even think about it.'

Resigned, he said, 'All right, Ava.'

She nodded, brusque, went back into the bedroom and he followed her. She took off her robe, slid back into bed and when he was beside her she moved a little closer, and they lay facing each other and she studied him solemnly.

'You worked out what to do yet?'

'I think so.'

'You planning on telling me?'

His fingers ached with the need to touch her face, to feel the smooth skin, the curve of her cheek, the hard high ridge of bone. He had already been weak, though he would defy the strongest of men to have resisted her, even if they had never wanted her as desperately as he did; it was weakness still but perhaps this would be a sort of goodbye. The final sweet memories. He stroked her face. 'As I recall, you already asked me to tell you everything and I said that I would.'

'I remember that, too. You think you can beat them?'

'I hope so.'

Ava turned her head, pressing her lips into the palm of his hand; she moved closer again; he lay back, taking her in her favoured position with her chin resting on his chest. One hand drew abstract patterns across his skin. 'We'll have to get you a hat, a big white one.'

He laughed, puzzled. 'Why?'

She planted a kiss, looked up at him again. 'Folks in trouble, a stranger riding in to go up against the corrupt officials, make everything okay - ain't that the plot of, like, a million Westerns?'

'Actually, I think that's the plot of _The A-Team_.'

Ava laughed. Even in the dark he could see the softness of her expression, the tender glitter in her eyes. Weakness, more than that. She could extract any promise she wished, take from him all the words that she wanted to hear and all she had to do now was ask. He caught her face between his hands, pulled her to him and kissed her. Her mouth so soft and warm and she made a noise in the back of her throat, a purring sound, and she slid her hands along his chest, pressing herself closer to him.

The thought of stopping her words faded fast; all that was left was the feel of her, the weight of her body against his, the long planes of smooth skin and the satin hair twining around his fingers. He pulled her head back, trailed his lips down her throat, tasted the salt on her skin.

When she moved again, rising over him he reached out, flicked on the lamp and they both blinked against it. Her body was golden under the light and she smiled down at him; he drank her in: the narrow waist and the full swell of her breasts and the way she looked at him. She bent low, catching his lips, her hair a scented curtain, heady, intoxicating all around, and he cupped her face, feeding on her sweetness.

Her hands were flat on his chest, fingers splayed, and when she lowered herself onto him he felt the indentation of her nails, ten half-moons against his skin. This wasn't the febrile, fevered delirium of earlier, this was slow, a familiar dance: he watched the way her face quivered, the way she bit down on her lip, half-smiling, the way her eyes stayed on his face. His hands were on her hips, keeping her steady and still. She moved like she was re-remembering him, inch by inch, a slow flame dancing around him.

He sat up, drawing her closer and she gasped, back bending; he lowered his head, tasting the skin between her breasts, then the soft curve of flesh, then his tongue coiling lazily around her nipple and he felt her hum in her chest, her fingers grasping his shoulders. Her hair tumbled over her face and his, a golden wave and he breathed it in, breathed her in, felt electricity, a current under the skin flooding through and every nerve-ending burned with need for her, with the feel of her all around him like honey, thick and warm and slow.

Not quite so slow now; they moved together, reaching a blaze of heat and her breath was catching, hoarse and quick near his ear and when she said his name, sighed it, it was enough to pull him with her and it was heat and light and wonder and peace and she was trembling in his arms and he would do anything, _anything_ , for this woman.

He held her tight, and she had wrapped herself around him and he buried his face in her hair, in the curve of her neck and all that he could say was her name, the only prayer, the only belief, he had left.

Later, when all was dark again and her back was curved against him, her breathing deep and calm, he kept his arm around her waist and whispered his secrets to her while she slept.

  


ooOoo

  


Arlene was still in her dressing-gown when Ava pushed open the door to the kitchen: her dark hair was a tumble of curls over the pink towelling covering her shoulders and she pushed it back roughly, awarded Ava a thorough scrutiny and an amused smile.

'You look mighty refreshed, all things considered. I take it there's been a, uh, thawing in relations?'

Ava looked at her, reproachful. Arlene laughed.

'No use in looking at me like that: it was pretty obvious last night.'

Ava felt the heat rush to her cheeks; not shame, but she had never really had another woman to talk to. It had been a long time for her, too, she thought. There been no idle chats, not many shared confidences while she had been married to Bowman.

She sat at Arlene's table and took a mug of coffee, spooning sugar into it. 'Don't know how long it will last. Boyd is... Well, he ain't easy.'

'Guess it wouldn't be as much fun if he was.'

Ava smiled. 'Guess not.'

'So' -Arlene sat opposite her, elbows on the table and her coffee mug cradled between her hands- 'how was it?'

'Arlene!'

She put her eyebrows up. 'I am a sour old widow-lady - I got to get my kicks from any source I can take 'em.'

'Gee, thanks.'

A pause.

'So?'

Memory, like an assault and her whole body flushed with it. Arlene watched her closely and when Ava met that gaze the dark eyes widened slightly.

'Damn.'

'Yeah...' Ava drank some of her coffee. All of her muscles still felt loose, her bones turned to molasses, all sweet and smoky inside.

Arlene stared into her mug, took some of the coffee, placed it on the table. 'Where is Boyd, anyhow?'

Ava looked up at her and felt the good humour fade from her face. 'He's gone on up to the creek.'

'Jes- Wha-' Arlene shook herself. 'Why?'

'He's getting something.'

  


ooOoo

  


The stench seemed worse. He had been prepared for it but it still seemed worse than before: too high and too sweet and too sickly. Flies buzzed and the dark stain of blood was deep and he could smell that, too, rich and metallic.

Blood and woodsmoke and freshly turned earth, he remembered that, and faces that had turned to him, listening, desperate, but he always remembered them as stiff and bloated and frozen; he had cut them down and their blood had been on his hands and clothes and he had put them in the cold ground.

Boyd pushed back the undergrowth, tried not to look at the swollen mass that had once been Bobby Deakins' face. The smell of rotting flesh was unendurable and he felt his stomach flip, nausea rising, he tilted his head back, caught at fresh air, dragged it deep and held it. He moved fast, peeling back the man's jacket, searching for the pockets and then his fingers found the fold of leather. He pulled out the wallet, let go of the breath, pulled in another and pulled himself up the bank.

  


ooOoo

  


They had finished clearing up the broken glass and shattered plant pots when Boyd's truck pulled up. Arlene was scowling at the gouge bitten into the the woodwork on the porch, spared him a glance as he mounted the steps, his hands plunged into his jacket pockets.

His face had a tight look, Ava thought, the line along his jaw bunched. She didn't ask if he was all right. He wasn't and he wouldn't be, not for a while. He stopped at the top step, standing very still.

'Did you get it?' she asked, quiet, and he nodded. Boyd transferred his gaze to Arlene, fixed.

'Have you called the police?'

Arlene looked at him, her face twisting with cynical amusement. 'What do you think?'

'Call them.'

She turned then. 'Why? Ain't like they'll do nothing; it was Lowell probably sent them out here, them hassling Ava or not.'

Boyd leaned against the railings, hands still in his pockets. 'Maybe. I'd like to be sure either way, see his face when he sees this.'

Arlene ran her tongue along her lips, moistening them. She glanced at Ava, and the other woman nodded slightly, a reassuring smile touching the corners of her mouth. 'Okay. Fine. If you want to run this show...' She went into the house.

They stood on the porch. Ava smoothed down her hair, crossed to the railings and rested her hands on the beam, stared out at the smoky-blue mountains. 'It's a beautiful day.'

'Mm.'

She looked at him; his head was bowed, seemingly studying the toe of his boot.

'It's a good thing you're doing,' she said, gentle and aching to reach out to him. She bit down on her lip, holding in the words. His head came up.

'Well, that's the funny thing, Ava. It doesn't really feel that way.'

  


ooOoo

  


The tyres bit against the gravel, sending up a spray of fine stone. Lowell Buscombe brought the car to a halt in a screech of rubber, slammed the door when he got out.

'What the fuck is wrong with you two knuckleheads?'

'What?' Cody, belligerent, defensive, his big chin stuck out and arms folded across his chest.

'You go shooting up the Lefferts house last night? What did I tell you?'

'He had it coming-'

'I don't give a shit!' His fingers twitched, moving for the gun reflexively; Cody saw it and Lowell saw that he did, saw the younger man's body tense and his face harden. 'I told you to keep away from that asshole until I had figured out what to do with him. You go messing with his woman, what did you think would happen? You're lucky he didn't open your throat with that bottle.' Cody's eyes flickered. 'Oh yeah, I know about the bar. You try thinking with your brain instead of your dick or some other shit part of you some day and you might just find that things go easier with you. You get that?'

The brothers glared at him, mutinous, Garrett, as always, taking his cue from Cody.

'Still don't see why we don't just take him out,' Cody muttered.

''Cos he ain't no Billy Deakins,' Lowell said, like he was talking to a slow child. '''Cos he's got a name for himself back there in Kentucky, and some dumb bitch who came down here with him, and a big Goddamn Marshal in the fucking federal service who seems mighty interested in what he does, far as I can tell, and unless you want to take them all out, Cody, I think we have ourselves a bigger problem than your two-bit Goddamn gangster act can handle. Is any of this getting through?'

Cody's face twitched, eyes flat and his mouth was a hard line. 'Yeah. Yeah, I fucking got it, okay?'

'Good. So does that mean I can leave you two mouthbreathers alone for an hour or two?'

Cody watched the car tear along the dirt road. 'Shit.' He spat on the ground.

'What?' Garrett eyed him, cautious and uncertain.

'He's gonna flip on us,' Cody said. 'I can feel it. Shit.'

Worry clouded Garrett's face. 'So what do we do?'

'I don't know yet.' He grinned suddenly, threw an arm around Garrett's massive shoulders. 'But I'll figure it out, baby brother, and when I do we'll have ourselves some Deputy Sheriff, wipe that smile right of that son of a bitch's face, and we'll have plenty of that Crowder asshole, too. You wait and see.'

  


ooOoo

  


Dinner was a largely silent affair, not much talking and not much appetite. Lee kept his eyes on his plate; Arlene, too distracted to notice much of anything, stared into the middle distance, her fingers twisting. Even Ronnie's usual amiability was subdued: he spoke little and when he did, everyone started.

And no-one looked each other in the eye.

It came as a relief to leave the main house, breath in air that didn't feel heavy with uncertainty. The cottage felt almost cosy but that still didn't hide its shabbiness. Ava longed to go home. She wanted her own house, surrounded by her own things. She wanted to go back to building the life they had begun.

In the dark she stared up at the ceiling, the unceasing chaos of thoughts denying her weary body the rest it craved. She pushed back the blankets, went through to the other room, picking her way carefully; it was a clear night, the moon high and bright and it shone through the thin curtains enough to make out the dark shapes of furniture. Ava lowered herself onto the couch and Boyd stirred immediately, his voice a rough croak, thickened with sleep. She hadn't challenged him on his decision - it wasn't the night for it; but she needed more than the coldness of her own body in that bed.

'It's okay,' Ava whispered. She fitted herself against him and he had no choice but to put his arms around her. He felt taut, rigid.

'I'm so tired,' she murmured.

He relaxed then and she felt his lips brush the top of her head.

'Go to sleep, baby.'

She smiled at that, her ear pressed against the steady hum of his heartbeat and she drifted away.

 


	10. Badlands

 

The bar was almost empty, just one guy in a baseball cap nursing a beer. Boyd crossed the space easily, and the barkeep's eyes were on him, watching him with the wariness he was used to seeing and never really thought about anymore.

'Morning,' he said pleasantly.

The head jerked in response. 'I don't want no trouble.'

Boyd held his hands out and up. 'And I am not here to cause any, you have my word.'

'Okay.' Dark eyes searched him. 'Guess you ain't after a drink, neither.'

He smiled. 'Well, you are right there, my friend.'

'So' -he finished with the glass he'd been polishing, set it on the bar-top, planted his hands, heavy, either side- 'what is it you do want?'

'I'm in the market for a little information and I am betting on you being the man to supply it. And I am also betting on you not passing along the fact that I have asked.'

The man's face quivered, eyes narrowing a fraction and his head tilting. 'Sounds like I'll be needing that drink.' He looked at Boyd consideringly and he submitted to the inspection. In the end the barkeep leaned forward, arms crossed. 'What do you want to know?'

  


ooOoo

  


The barkeep's name was Mike - just one of the many things he had learned, along with most of the man's life story. Boyd had listened, polite, inserting the occasional question to keep him happy but in the end he had got what he wanted. Outside it was sunshine, a pleasant day, and the breeze was cool behind the haze of sun. For the past two days he had left his cellphone on, just in case. With everything that was going down, and the storm that was about to break, he would rather know that Ronnie or Arlene could get hold of him if they needed to.

He did care about that.

But more than that, he cared that Ava could if she needed to.

When the phone did ring he felt his heart rise and a grip around his stomach and the thought that he'd got all of it wrong, and then he thought again that it was probably just Johnny ringing in to boast or to whine and he looked at the illuminated screen and his lips drew together. He stared at it for a few seconds, then made the decision and pressed the button and raised it to his ear.

'Why hello, Raylan.'

 _'Boyd. Where're you at?'_

Boyd smiled. 'Always to the point. My current location is beyond anywhere for you to be concerned with.'

 _'Huh. I didn't know it was possible to get a line to Hell.'_

He could see the quirk around the other man's lips, the furrowed brow and the eyes, narrowing. Boyd waited and he heard a breath blown out on the other end of the line.

 _'Is Ava with you?'_

'She is.'

 _'She okay?'_

'She hasn't told me she isn't.'

More silence.

 _'I need to talk to you,'_ Raylan said in the end.

'I had gathered that from the number of calls on my phone. You could have left a message.'

 _'I wanted to say this in person, Boyd, but it doesn't look like that's an option right now.'_

Boyd leaned against the hood of his truck, tilted his head back and felt the sun on his face, closing his eyes against the glare. 'What is it I can do for you, Raylan?'

 _'I need to talk to you about Dickie Bennett.'_

Boyd sucked in a breath, eyes open again, head lowering. 'As far as I am aware he is still a guest of the United States Government.'

 _'That's what I need to talk to you about.'_

He made himself loosen the hard grip on his phone. 'Is he dead?'

 _'No. Again, that's what I need to talk to you about.'_

Ava's face riven with pain, her blood on the walls and the floor, soaking into the couch, the cushions, the table. The memory of it was a dull headache that covered his whole body. And Raylan strung up in a tree, limbs all twisted, only he had been alive, he had still been alive, and Boyd had been there in time. They were all still alive, despite Dickie's best efforts.

'You made me a promise,' Boyd said, soft.

 _'Right. Why don't you tell me where you are and we can discuss that.'_

He took in air, felt it rattle through his chest and it tasted of ashes and blood. 'I can't do that right now.'

 _'Where are you?'_   
It was more genuine curiosity now. Boyd remained silent and he heard Raylan mutter something. He pushed it all down, balling it up into something manageable, something to be brought out later, when he was ready, and when he had Dickie Bennett face-to-face. Now it was other business and it needed all of his attention. He tilted his head back again, holding his face toward the sun.

'Tell me, Raylan, all the times that you have gone into a situation going up against the bad guys... If you were in such a situation and you were without your badge and without the authority of the glorious institution that is the Marshal's Office, would you still do what you had to do even if that were not one hundred percent legal? That's always supposing, of course, that all of the actions that you take in your official capacity are one hundred percent legal.'

There was a long pause and he could hear the other man breathing hard.    
_'I'm not following you, Boyd.'_

'Oh, I think you understand the question just fine, Raylan. Many thanks. I'll be in touch.' He hung up.

  


ooOoo

  


Ava had gone with Arlene into the town, both of them more in need of getting away for a while than in need of practical necessities.

And in Arlene's case, Ava suspected, a need to show defiance, not to be seen to be cowed. Criss-crossing the street, going into almost all of the stores lining it but not buying much. It was nice in its way, friendly, and Ava thought that this was the sort of thing that she could get used to, having someone to talk to, to go shopping with, not to have to hide from. She had relaxed into it, but when she saw Boyd standing beside his truck it caught her like a blow and every bone in her body twisted, suddenly soft.

No man had the right to have that effect on a woman and in the end he'd done it without even trying. It had happened, and here they were.

Ava turned to Arlene, her arms wrapped around the brown paper bags, lowered them slowly onto the floor of the flatbed. 'You mind heading on up without me?'

Arlene's eyes slipped sideways and then crinkled. 'I'd say don't do anything I wouldn't do, but I don't think that'd leave much. Besides, I think that ship already sailed.'

Ava waved as the truck pulled away, then took a moment and watched him. He was talking on the phone, a conversation that seemed to unsettle him; she saw that but she also saw the way he had his face turned up to the sun, soaking it in, taking comfort from the air around him.

He loved the outdoors, not in the way most people did, just liking it, admiring it, but he really loved it, felt it; it was part of him in a way that she didn't really understand but she knew how it was with him and she wondered how he could ever have stood being down in that hole. And then going back, after all that time, and he done that for a quiet life- He had done it for her, for the money she owed the bank, for all of the things he had been sorry for and that she hadn't really cared about anymore. She'd do anything before she'd see him back down there.

She crossed the street to him and when his head lowered and he saw her there was a moment where everything else seemed to have been forgotten and when she smiled at him he wore the same look he'd have when they were just kids and he'd see her on the street.

'Fancy seeing you here.'

He let out a breath, light. 'It's a small world.'

They sat in his truck, the only place nearby that offered any kind of privacy and no-one passing by paid them any attention.

'Who were you talking to? I saw you on the phone,' Ava added, firm.

Boyd studied the dashboard, a long moment before he came to a resolution and he looked at her and then said, 'It was Raylan.'

'Oh.' Ava bit the inside of her lip, nodded. 'He came round before I left - he was looking for you.'

'And you didn't think to tell me?'

'Well, I'm telling you now. What does he want?'

More silence that felt spiky, an unknown presence colliding in the space. Boyd took in a breath that seemed to go right through him and he released it, sat back against the seat, resigned. 'We did not get into the specifics but he wishes to have a conversation with me about Dickie Bennett.'

'What about him?'

'We didn't get that far.'

Ava stared through the windshield, felt the itch in her shoulder and kept her hands tight in her lap. Memories chased through and she held her lips tight, then: 'I should have shot that little bastard the night he came to the house and roughed you up.'

Boyd smiled. 'Well, you did kill the duffel-bag.'

Ava laughed, sudden, shuddered, looked across at him.'You have any idea what was in that?'

He shook his head. 'No, and I don't want to.'

They sat in silence and in the end she couldn't stop her fingers creeping up to where that scar lay. 'But he's still in prison, right?'

His voice was tight then. 'I have a feeling that he'll be back in Harlan before too long.'

Ava let out a breath, put her hand back in her lap, held onto it. 'Isn't there someone you know who can shove something sharp and pointed into him?'

'That would be tempting.' Boyd twisted slightly in his seat, leant toward her a scant fraction. 'Believe me, Ava, when I deal with Dickie Bennett, and I surely will, it shall be face-to-face.'

'You'd actually have to be in Harlan for that.'

'And I intend to be.'

Ava nodded, stared through the windshield at the dusty street and the people passing by. 'So you intend to be in Harlan, but you just don't intend to be with me. I seem to have heard that before.'

He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them. 'At the moment I'd prefer it if we talked about this at a later time.'

'So we are going to talk about it? Well, that's an improvement at least.' She ran her hands through her hair, shifted in her seat, the worn leather squeaking under her as she moved. 'What do we do now?'

'We?'

'Arlene's gone back up to the farm and unless you're planning on leaving me in the middle of town, which I wouldn't advise you trying, you're my ride back. So. What are we doing?' She looked at him keenly and her face softened. 'You're not alone in this. You've taken this on but no-one's expecting you to do it on your own. I took it, too. I'm with you. So, what do we do?'

He might have been trying to look resigned but it was more like gratitude in his face. Another point, Ava thought, and he could hardly blame her for it - of all the people she seen play the long game he had been by far the best at it, he could hardly hold against her what she had learnt from him.

'I was planning on making a delivery.'

'Oh?'

He pulled out the wallet, holding it between a cloth; the leather was stained, slimy, it smelt of decay and she felt her stomach rebel against it; she pushed down the wave of nausea and lifted her chin. 'Where's that going?'

He watched her for a moment and his head moved, a slight shake as though there was something he could not quite believe and he put it away again.

'I have had the thought that Bobby Deakins was never supposed to be found again upon this earth - I don't think that Deputy Sheriff Buscombe will be too happy on discovering that Bobby might be more ... conveniently located than he had imagined.'

'It's all coming down now, ain't it?' She was solemn, steady.

'It is. If you want to get out-'

'I'm with you.' She stated the words clearly and with weight. 'And I'm getting mighty tired of saying that. You do what you need to do and I will be here.'

The wallet was put into an envelope, Buscombe's name printed on it clearly. The envelope was posted through the door of the sheriff's office, Boyd walking past with an easy unbroken stride and unless anybody had been watching for it they would not have noticed.

Boyd was back in the truck and they had sat for a long time before the door opened and they saw Lowell on the street. He looked around, pulled out his phone and talked into it urgently, his face reddening a he spoke.

'He doesn't look too happy,' Ava said.

Boyd started the engine. 'He'll look a lot less happy before we're through.'

  


ooOoo

  


There was coffee, hot, a bottle of bourbon and they had congregated again in the kitchen.

'You can't kill a Deputy Sheriff.' Arlene's voice was tense, sharp, her fingers curling and uncurling around the handle of her mug.

'The idea is that it won't come to that.'

'And if it does?'

Boyd smiled slightly. 'Well, then we go to Plan B.'

'And what's that?'

'It's probably best you don't know.'

When Boyd had got back to the farm he had made two phonecalls, using the numbers that Mike had given him: one to Lowell, one to Cody. They were both already twitchy and neither as smart as they thought they were. It made it easier. He glanced at his watch, finished what was left of his coffee, and stood.

'If you will excuse me-'

'What makes you think they'll get there early?'

'It's what I would do,' Boyd told Arlene. Her eyes took him, then she looked away, her forehead creasing and her fingers twisting together. He sighed, faint, buttoned up his jacket. And Ronnie pushed himself up from the table.

'I'll come with you.'

'Ronnie!' Arlene's head snapped up; he waved a hand at her.

'Now, none of that. It don't seem right, you going on up there on your own; and I feel bad - I'm the one who got you into this. Should've kept my big mouth shut back in the diner.'

Boyd stood for a moment, hands in his pockets and when he spoke his voice was soft. 'There are plenty of people who will attest that I have never got into anything of which I did not wish to be a part.'

Not quite true, Ava thought, not quite. But it was no time to split hairs. She kept her lips pressed tight and her hands on the table-top. The sawed-off was in the corner, just within sight and within reach.

Ronnie took in a deep breath, leaned back on his feet. 'I may not be good for all that much these days: eyes ain't what they used to be and my hands shake; but I can't watch you walk up there and do the job I should have done. Those little shits have done enough damage around here. One way or another they may have killed my son; they most certainly killed Bobby. Only so much a man can take when he sits back and does nothing; all right, so you chose to fight for us but I still got you up here and I did that without telling you what the risks might be and you haven't held that against me. Ava over here might, though, if you go off and don't come back. Couldn't blame her for that. I'll have your back, if nothing else.'

'Well, Ronnie,' Boyd said after a time, and his voice was still soft, 'I'd be mighty glad of the company.'

Ava tossed the hair away from her face, blinked hard against the pressure behind her eyes, steadied herself.

'What about me?'

Lee had his back pressed against the kitchen wall, his face pale and his eyes wide but there was a hardness about his mouth and chin, something determined. Boyd looked at Arlene and she looked helpless. He crossed to the boy, put a hand on his shoulder and peered into his face.

'You do what she says.' He pointed at Ava. 'She tells you to run, to get down, to lock yourself in your Goddamn closet, you do it. You understand me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Good.'

Boyd moved towards the kitchen door and Ava stood, took a step towards him. They looked at each other.

'When I get back... We'll talk.'

Her chin lifted. 'You just make sure that you do come back.' A pause and she could feel the muscles in her face ease, tremble, the need for him flood through her. 'Be careful.'

'You too.'

The door closed and she still stared at at, stared still until she heard the truck start up and pull away and it was just her and Arlene and the boy.


	11. Killing Time

 

 

Shadows were lengthening through the tangle of undergrowth along the creek. Dragonflies skimmed across the water's surface, birds called to each other. Peaceful. Ronnie had been fidgeting ever since they had taken up position. He glanced at Boyd, shifted again.

'Don't know how you can be so calm,' he said.

'Something I learned a long time ago, Ronnie: always be cool.'

Ronnie smiled, scratched the back of his neck. 'I don't think I've ever been cool. Always wanted to be.' His head tilted, considering. 'I always had a notion I'd like to be like that actor, Steve McQueen. You know him?'

'I do.'

'Great actor. And he was real cool, weren't he?'

Boyd nodded, eyes watchful.

'Yeah, I'd have liked to have been cool like that, but I guess now it's too late.'

'Well, Ronnie, if the sentiment brings you any consolation, I think you're pretty cool.'

Ronnie grinned, pleased.

They settled again and Boyd concentrated on the sounds, waiting for the noise of an engine. It came, a whine pitched high over the birdsong, slowly deepening as it came closer. Headlights pushed through the encroaching gloom. A dark truck with insignia. Boyd felt Ronnie move beside him, the breathing a little laboured.

'Ronnie,' he said soft.

'I'm good. I'm cool.'

Boyd smiled. 'Well, you stay that way.'

In the clearing above the creek, Lowell had parked up, stood looking around, eyes dark and suspicious. There was a tension running along his body. He wasn't alone for long - another car came along the path, stopping a little way off and Cody eased out slow. The two men regarded each other.

'Where's Garrett?'

Cody held his arms folded, feet planted. 'I sent him to take care of some other business.'

 

ooOoo

 

Garrett Jenkins had spent most of his life following his brother's lead and very little of it thinking about much of anything. None of that had ever really mattered. When he pulled up in front of the Lefferts' farm he still didn't think much beyond what Cody had told him to do: he approached the house, not trying to hide, but he stopped when he saw that the windows were all dark, not even the porch-light lit. It was getting on for evening. Wait until it's quiet, Cody had told him, but is was quiet already. He stood for a long moment, took a few hesitant steps and then noticed a light. Not from the house, this was from the little building where Bobby Deakins used to put up.

He walked towards that, slow. The door was standing open. Garrett pushed it wider, slid in and looked around. The room was empty, so was the bedroom and the bathroom. He pushed back the shower-curtain to make sure.

He didn't think much but he thought enough to feel uncertain. He thought, more long moments, about leaving but he imagined Cody's face when he told him and Lowell Buscombe's.

Garrett walked back to the main house, mounted the steps to the kitchen door and tried it. Locked. Easy to force it, though. He let himself into the kitchen, took a moment to look around. His breathing sounded loud in that quiet space. Trucks were still outside and the house next door was lit up but it was so silent in here. He pulled out his gun, found the weight of it a comfort, held it high, pointing up, started down the hallway and something hit him, hard, from behind.

He sprawled on the ground, white pain exploding across the base of his skull and something pushed into the small of his back.

'Get his gun.' A woman's voice, not Arlene Lefferts', he was sure of that. A foot pressed down on his wrist and his fingers jerked reflexively, the gun pulled away.

'Better check he don't have another.' He was patted down, hands that moved roughly.

'I don't feel one.'

The thing at his back jabbed down. 'You got another piece? And don't you lie to me.'

He grunted, mouth feeling thick and his head pounding.

'Okay. You get up, real slow and keep your hands out.'

He stood, staggered, righted himself; he turned and found the blonde that Cody had taken a shine to in the bar standing with a sawed-off pointed at his chest and her hands were steady. Arlene Lefferts stood by her, also with a shotgun and her face just as determined and set.

'What the hell you going to do with that?'

The blonde smiled, a strange flicker across her face as though thinking of something; whatever she had been about to say she pushed down and said, 'I could shoot you. You busting in here, armed, with just two women and a kid? We could put a bullet in you and there ain't no jury would say we'd done anything wrong.'

Bravado, he lifted his chin. 'You ain't gonna shoot me. Crazy bitch.'

She racked the gun and he cowered, flinching against the sound.

'That's mighty big talk for someone with a shotgun pointed at his chest. Either you're more stupid than you look or you think I ain't serious. I know how easy it is to kill a man and I ain't got no qualms when it comes to you, make no mistake.' She gestured with the barrel of the gun and her eyes, blazing fierce, stayed on his face. 'Get down the hall. And if you try even the littlest thing you'll be shaking hands with your maker. Or the devil. Guess you know which I've got my money on.'

He moved slowly into the kitchen, sat in the chair that they pointed him to, then Arlene taped his hands. They stood over him and he saw the boy, Lee, somewhere in the background.

Pitiable, and pitiful - had he known those words - but he sat in the hard-backed chair and watched the two women.

'So,' the blonde said,'what was the play?'

He was silent and she raised her eyebrows and the gun in her hands moved a fraction and he swallowed hard, kept his eyes on it.

'I was supposed to get you, while your boyfriend's up at the creek. Where's he at, anyhow?'

She shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching. 'You guys are all the same and you all think your dumbass ideas are so smart.' Her fingers tightened. 'Boyd's up at the creek, just as planned. We're waiting on a call. So. We can all wait together.'

 

ooOoo

 

They followed Cody and Lowell a little down the track, down to where it opened up just before the branches of the trees lining the bank swung low again and the stench of decay rose up.

'I guess you boys have gone about far enough.' Boyd stepped out onto the path, hands in his pockets and he faced them down. They were close to where the body lay but apart from each other, space between that spoke of confederates who long held one another's trust but no longer. They both turned, bodies crouching low and he saw Lowell's hand going for his gun but Boyd's was already drawn and raised. 'I wouldn't do that, Lowell. I've been shot by a man who can draw down faster than you can blink and I'd be willing to bet my life on you not being even half as fast as he is, but even so you will have to admit that in this case I have the draw on you. If you go for me, I will shoot you. The same goes for your boy here.'

'I ain't his boy!' Cody stood, chin pointing up. Lowell glared at him.

'I had assumed that, following our conversation.'

'You spoke to him?' Lowell's glare had turned black.

'Oh, I spoke to him,' Boyd said, smooth. 'We had quite a conversation and he told me all about Bobby Deakins and the chemical company and how much they were paying you.'

Cody started. 'Shit, they were paying you?'

'You Goddamn moron!' Lowell turned from Cody, peered over Boyd's shoulder. 'Ronnie? You going along with this?'

'Whatever goes down here is on you. You killed my boy, Lowell. Maybe you didn't shoot him like you did poor Bobby down there, but you still killed him. I watched him die and it was slow and no-one should have to watch their child die that way. Not any way. This is on you, and Cody over there, and you're both going to take what's coming.'

'You listen-'

'That weren't nothing to-'

Both men spoke at once, both taking a step forward, and both stopping when Boyd raised his voice.

'Now, I should give you two fair warning - this here stretch of land has been laid with charges. I'm guessing that there ain't too many people in Hunter's Creek who don't know that I have been employed by the Lefferts to do some blasting for them and this is part of their land. It's up to them where they attempt to cultivate and the fertile soil beside a creek should be as good as any. Only thing is, the detonator is not at this present time in my possession. If you gentlemen would care to notice that little box that's lying on the rock over yonder, well that would be it. And from the way that you have arranged yourselves, well, one of you is standing right on top of those charges. I have seen the remains of a man after such a blast and I can testify that it is not a death that any man would want but sometimes a desperate man may resort to such means.'

'You threatening a Sheriff's Deputy, Crowder? Should be good for a stretch,' Lowell called out.

'I have made no threats,' Boyd said, still calm. 'I have merely informed you of the work that has been done on this land - the land that you had accepted payment for to poison and ruin and that you killed at least one man for. Did he pay you, Cody? Or did he tell you that Bobby Deakins was a threat to all of the pettiness that I have no doubt that you and your brother have charge of down these parts?'

'He didn't pay us shit,' Cody said, teeth baring.

'Hide the body,' Lowell said, voice rough, 'that's all you had to do, hide the Goddamn body!'

'And I did, Lowell, but I figured you was going to screw us over one way or another and I was right! 'Cos you're doing it right now!'

'You fucking- Cody! Shit, boy, you stay where you are!'

He went for his gun, a shot ringing out, fire against the dark, and there was the dull sickening thud as the bullet struck. Cody yelled and flung himself forward, still moving faster than Lowell and his hand closed over the detonator and there was a second of silence and then flame tore through the sky.

 

ooOoo

 

They heard the blast, muted, even in the house. Ava turned her head to the window, imagined fire on the skyline.

'Fire in the hole,' she murmured.

The sawed-off in the crook of one arm, she pulled her cellphone out with her free hand, stared at the screen, willing it. 'Come on,' below her breath, 'come on...'

The tone rang, sharp, and she pressed the button before the first of it had died away. 'Boyd?' Her body sagged, eyes closing for a second and then she righted herself. 'Yes, he's here, we got him taped up ... We're fine ... Of course I'm sure ... Uh-huh ... Uh-huh ... Okay ... I'll see you when you get back, then. And we'll talk.'

Ava put the phone back in her pocket. 'Your brother just killed the Deputy Sheriff,' she told Garrett, 'and he's got himself shot up pretty bad, they ain't sure if he'll make it before the ambulance gets there. See, we got police on the way - the real police, not your corrupt as shit sheriff. And what with him dead and your brother on his way out and them up there with a dead body and the sheriff having his wallet and all... Well, it don't look too good. And then there's you, breaking in here, and you're pretty much all that's left.' She leaned her hip against the kitchen counter, shook the hair away from her shoulders and kept her eyes and her gun trained on Garrett. 'We know you killed Bobby Deakins.'

'That wasn't us. That was Lowell, he shot him! He's the one killed that boy, we just hid the body.'

'And you did a real good job.' Ava observed him, remote, dispassionate. 'I ain't up on all that with the law, but there's this thing called felony murder. If you knew about a crime and someone dies during it, it don't matter if you didn't kill them yourself but you still go to jail just the same. And if dumping all that shit in the creeks was legal, I don't think you'd be killing people to cover it up.'

'I don't know nothing about that. And I didn't kill no-one!' His slack face was sweaty, white, his lips coated with saliva and dripping. He strained against the tape binding his wrists and ankles to the chair. 'I never killed no-one... It wasn't supposed to be this way!'

He started to cry, his face a mess of tears and mucus and flaccid muscle.

Ava lowered the gun. 'Well. I don't know if they've got the death penalty here but maybe if you tell the D.A. what he wants to hear about the dumping and the murder and the sheriff, then maybe you won't die in prison - one way or the other.'

His head lowered, and he sobbed.


	12. The Long Way Home

 

Early-morning rain had left a film of moisture over everything and the sky still hung low and leaden. Boyd slung his bags into the back of his truck. 

'So, where you headed now? Still on down to Mallory?' 

'Maybe. I haven't quite figured that out yet.' 

Ronnie nodded, slow. 'Well... I'd say stay on here but I don't think being a farm-hand is quite what you have in mind for a career.' 

Boyd smiled, just one corner of his mouth turning up. 'I don't think I ever had anything in mind. But if you ever need any blasting doing again, you can give me a call.' 

'Think I seen enough blasting to last me a lifetime. Might just give you a call anyhow, though.' 

They grasped one another by the hand, Ronnie landing one big paw on Boyd's shoulder and squeezing. 

Ava was hugging Arlene - or maybe it was the other way around. The two women had talked long, and low, and fast, and then Arlene turned away and wrapped her arms around herself and smiled at him. She was good-looking when she smiled. 

'Hell. Wish I knew what to say.' 

'That you're mighty glad that three days of questioning is over, I'd imagine.' 

A breath of laughter. 'Well, there is that. Honestly, though, I'm real grateful.' 

Boyd shook his head. 'I wish you luck.' 

She blew out a breath. 'We'll need it. Y'all take care, now, you hear?' 

He nodded again and she smiled again and then smiled again at Ava, and then Arlene and Ronnie went back into the house. 

'That's a good question,' Ava said when the door had closed, 'where are you going now?' 

He sighed. 'Like I said, Ava, I have not decided.' 

'So... What? You're going to be a drifter now? Fine. I always wanted to see more of America anyhow.' 

'Ava-' 

Her eyes glittered. 'Ava, what?' 

'You and me... This is the end of all that.' 

She pushed out her lips, eyebrows raising. 'When you said we'd talk I did think it would last a little longer than that.' A few steps forward, her head tilting, looking him over. 'Y'know, I might find your whole "we're over" routine more convincing if you'd stop calling me baby.' Her lips curled at the look on his face, satisfied. 'Yeah, it slips out when you ain't really paying attention. It's, uh, subconscious. Don't they say that's when the truth comes out? And then there was the other night.' 

He blew out a breath. 'That shouldn't have happened, Ava, and I'm sorr-' 

'Boyd, I swear to God, you say you're sorry one more time, _I'm_ going to shoot you.' She stared at him, shook her head. And she had come so close that he could smell her perfume. 'Besides, I also heard what you said after; I wasn't really asleep.' No shame in her face, she stated it as a challenge. 'I wanted to know what you had to say and seeing as how you thought I couldn't hear you, there ain't no point in telling me you were only saying what you thought I wanted to hear.' 

The breath shook through his chest. 'I wasn't going to.' 

'Well, good. Tell me something else: just what happens when you are back in Harlan?' 

He took a pause and then: 'Well, I'm trusting that we can still be friends.' 

'See, that's going to be a real problem because I ain't interested in being your friend.' She bit down on her lip, brow furrowed. 'I lived for a long time trying to work out just how I was going to get from one day to the next - you know that better than anyone. And that ain't living, it's surviving. Existing. And I want more than that now. These last few months, I have finally been living; and one way or another, you're a big part of why. Maybe it won't last all that long. Maybe something will happen next week or next month or next year. Or maybe it won't. Maybe we'll get to live out our lives. I don't know, Boyd, and neither do you. For all your book learning you can't tell the future any better than I can. All I know is that I would sooner take what's coming, whatever that is and whenever it comes, and be happy, than both of us be miserable and apart. If you just want to get out of Harlan, that's fine; I'll come with you. But if not, then you quit this nonsense right now so we can go home.' 

Against the grey sky her hair still gleamed gold. She looked invincible - and the fragility, he realised, was all his. 'Looks like you ain't giving me much of a choice.' 

She released a breath. 'I'm not.' 

Her arms around his neck, they held each other; then her head moved, her mouth finding his and he heard the faint sigh in the back of her throat when his lips closed over hers. She was sweet and fierce, yielding in his arms and overwhelming. 

'This is it,' she whispered against his ear, 'this is all there is. It's just you and me, for better or worse.' 

'That sounds like-' He took hold of her shoulders, looked into her face and the words that came he couldn't stop. 'Is that something you would want?' 

She blinked fast, eyes luminous and shimmering. 'What?' 

'To marry me.' 

  


ooOoo 

  


Lee made the walk from the bus stop along the road back up to the house with slower steps than usual. He had never been much good at goodbyes, and making a big point of it over two people you barely knew seemed silly. He thought about that and kicked up splashes of muddy water. 

Boyd's truck was still outside of the house and he stared at it, eyes wandering across the roll of land and then back. When he got closer he saw the piece of paper under the wiper; it flapped emphatically in the breeze and his name was printed on it in large black letters. Lee looked at it for a time, then pulled it down, unfolded it slowly. 

_Dear Lee_

_Keep the truck. Go to school. And try reading a book once in a while - you might be surprised, poetry isn't all bad._

_Boyd_

He read the note twice and with it still in his hand he opened the door, slid into the seat. The keys were in the ignition. He twisted around and saw two books lying on the backseat; he reached over, pulled them to him, rested them on his lap. And he gazed through the windshield and grinned. 

  


ooOoo 

  


They moved the pot plants back onto the porch. They had survived fairly well, and Ava spent some time pulling off the dead leaves, watering them. The doors and windows all stood open, letting fresh air blow through the house, getting rid of that smell of staleness and abandonment. 

Boyd rested one hand at the small of her back. 'Coffee?' 

She nodded. His fingers trailed across and she watched him step into the house. Ava finished with the plants, crossed to the railings and leant against them, looked out at the familiar contours and colours of the holler, of the roll of hills and the bluegrass that was home. A feeling of peace again, of ease, and she smiled to herself, content, and played with the metal band that encircled her finger. 

_The End_


End file.
